When celebrities thanked their doctors: Health battles that changed their lives

Behind the red carpets, film premieres, and award speeches, some of the world's most famous people have endured cancer wards, operating rooms, and lengthy recoveries away from the limelight. Many of them came out the other side with a public, passionate thank-you for the medical staff who pulled them through.

From Selena Gomez to Yuvraj Singh, these celebrities never forgot the doctors who helped them recover

Selena Gomez was only 25 when she had a kidney transplant after years of battling lupus. Her best friend Francia Raisa was the donor, but Gomez acknowledged her whole medical team with saving her life.

At the age of 29, Michael J. Fox was given a Parkinson's disease diagnosis, which he made his life's mission. Instead of going out of sight, he established the Michael J. Fox Foundation, which has grown to be one of the most important global players in Parkinson's disease research. He offered the world a movement in response to his physicians' prognosis.

At the peak of her career, Manisha Koirala revealed a stage IV ovarian cancer diagnosis in 2012. It led to an eleven-hour operation at Memorial Sloan Kettering in New York and six exhausting sessions of chemotherapy. In 2013, after receiving confirmation that she was cancer-free, she wrote a book called Healed, which was mostly devoted to the physicians she called her "second chance at life." She later said that rather than being doctors, her oncology team consisted people who taught her to treasure every moment.

The film industry was devastated when Sanjay Dutt was diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer in 2020. He moved away from the screen, received therapy, and came out of it cancer-free. He came back with a vigour that gave viewers the impression that they were witnessing a man who understood exactly what had been returned to him.

While being hailed as a World Cup hero, cricket player Yuvraj Singh, an icon in his own right, was battling a rare mediastinal cancer. After completing his chemotherapy in Boston, he established YouWeCan, a foundation that raises awareness of cancer and provides financial assistance to those who cannot afford early detection. He has spoken warmly and directly about the medical teams in the US and India who he says quite literally kept him on the field of life.

Hrithik Roshan, who had brain surgery in 2013 to remove a blood clot, has described the procedure as a life-changing event that altered his perception of both his own body and the medical professionals he had previously taken for granted.

After overcoming overwhelming odds to survive a leukaemia diagnosis in 2004, director Anurag Basu returned to filmmaking and devoted years of interviews to admitting that he was alive courtesy of people he could never fully repay.

Deepika Padukone, whose open declaration of her diagnosis of depression in 2015 broke important cultural ground in India, credited the physicians and therapists for giving her the confidence to talk at all.

These are not stories that end with the final scan or the discharge papers. They tend to keep going — in foundations, books, documentaries, and award speeches that begin with tears and end with the name of a doctor most of the audience has never heard of, but probably should.

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