Val Kilmer Reveals He Used Prayer to Overcome Throat Cancer

Val Kilmer is opening up about how prayer helped him to beat throat cancer. The actor, who is a Christian Scientist, said he went for surgery, chemotherapy and radiation, but that was not what healed him.

"I prayed, and that was my form of treatment," he told The New York Times in an interview published on Wednesday

The diagnoses came in 2014. Kilmer discovered a lump in his throat and a doctor confirmed that it was cancer. The "Batman Forever" star had other ideas of what that meant.

In Christian Science there is no set diagnosis, or as Kilmer explained: "the idea is rather than say I have it or possess it, there is a claim, there’s a suggestion that this is a fact."

He believed the lump was his own fear of expressing himself. Through prayer with a spiritual adviser, he could release the fear and his body would no longer "manifest outwardly what can be diagnosed as a malady."

However, his family was reluctant for him to skip treatment and he relented.

"I just didn’t want to experience their fear, which was profound," Kilmer said. "I would’ve had to go away, and I just didn’t want to be without them."

He had surgery then underwent chemotherapy and radiation, which left him with a tracheostomy tube and a feeding tube.

Despite the evidence, Kilmer caused a stir two years later when he denied having cancer after Michael Douglas, who had also suffered from the illness, said they both did. Kilmer repeated the statement to The New York Times.

"They said I was denying that I had cancer, and when they asked me, I didn’t have cancer," he said.

Kilmer said that it was prayer that helped him overcome the cancer and that the medical treatment he received did more harm than good.

His trach tube was "from radiation and chemotherapy" and "not from cancer." he said. "That 'treatment' caused my suffering."

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