Michael Douglas Confesses He Had Tongue, Not Throat Cancer

Three years after his diagnosis, Michael Douglas announced yesterday that he was in fact suffering from tongue cancer, not throat cancer.

The actor sat down with pal Samuel L. Jackson for the U.K. talk show This Morning's Male Cancer Awareness Week edition and confessed that his doctor advised him to lie about his disease.

He said, 'Let's just say it's throat cancer. ... We don't want to say it's tongue cancer. I said, 'Why is that?' He said, 'Well, if you really want to know why -- if we do have to do surgery, it's not going to be pretty. You'll lose part of your jaw and your tongue, and all of that stuff.

Worried about the public reaction, the Oscar winner fibbed to the media during his press tour for Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps.

Douglas said he will never forget the expression on his doctor's face when he located the sizable tumor while using a tongue depressor.

He said, 'We need a biopsy.' There was a walnut-size tumor at the base of my tongue that no other doctor had seen.

Now that he's been cancer-free for two years, the actor said there's only a slim, five percent chance of a recurrence. The milestone might have motivated him to make this revelation. However, he would have been better served revealing this information in May when he confirmed that his cancer was caused from the HPV virus. His rep later said that statement was taken out of context.