Ninja Reveals Skin Cancer Diagnosis: Professional Gamer in 'Shock'

Ninja, the professional video game player and most-followed Twitch streamer in the world, revealed he was diagnosed with skin cancer.

“Alright I’m still in a bit of shock but want to keep you all updated. A few weeks ago I went in to a dermatologist for an annual skin/mole check that Jess proactively scheduled for me. There was a mole on the bottom of my foot that they wanted to remove just to be careful. It came back as melanoma, but they are optimistic that we caught it in the early stages,” Ninja, whose real name is Tyler Blevins, wrote on X (formerly Twitter).

He continued, “I had another dark spot appear near it, so today they biopsied that and removed a larger area around the melanoma with the hopes that under the microscope they will see clear non-melanoma edges and we will know we got it. I’m grateful to have hope in finding this early, but please take this as a PSA to get skin checkups.”

The 32-year-old streamer got his start in 2009 as a competitive “Halo 3” player, but he became the face of professional gaming during the early days of “Fortnite,” in 2017. Soon, Ninja was a global celebrity, playing “Fortnite” with Drake, Travis Scott and JuJu Smith Schuster on Twitch and appearing on talk shows including “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon,” “The Daily Show” and “The Ellen DeGeneres Show.”

Ninja has nearly 24 million subscribers on YouTube and, with 19 million followers, is the most-followed user on the livestreaming platform Twitch.