Country singer Justin Moore has opened up about the cancer scare behind his noticeably thicker neck.
Moore, 42, revealed on Tracy Lawrence’s “TL’s Road House” podcast on Wednesday that doctors discovered benign fatty tissue on his neck after he feared the growth could be cancerous. The Arkansas native said he initially thought the condition might be a lipoma, but testing showed it was simply fat deposits that pose no health threat.
“I’ve had some health issues. Nothing life-threatening, thankfully. I’ve got a – I don’t know if you can see this on my neck, I’m sure people think, ‘Golly, he’s been eatin’ good,'” Moore told Lawrence, 58, on the podcast.
“We thought it was called a lipoma. But it’s just fat. It’s benign, thank God. And they told me it would be very, very difficult to do surgery, and it may affect my singing, and even my speaking voice.”
Moore joked about his changed appearance, embracing the unexpected transformation despite the initial fear.
“It’s weird, it doesn’t affect me, I just look like a linebacker circa 1982, thick neck,” he quipped.
The “Small Town USA” hitmaker admitted he felt deflated when doctors delivered the good news with a catch: the growth was harmless but inoperable without risking his career.
“My wife and I were walking out of the hospital when I had an MRI or something and they had told us, ‘Man, great news. It’s benign, but there’s really not anything we can do about it,'” he recalled.
“So I was kind of bummed out walking out of the hospital, cause at the time we didn’t know if it was cancer. We didn’t know what it was, you know, and of course your mind takes you to the worst possible places obviously.”
His wife, Kate, whom he married in 2007 and with whom he shares four children, quickly shut down his disappointment with blunt perspective.
“And my wife looked at me, she goes, ‘If you just have a fat neck and you’re here for the next 50 years, then shut up and stop complaining,'” Moore shared.
The health revelation follows months of fan speculation that intensified when Moore opened for Riley Green’s “As Good As It Gets Tour” in Virginia on August 8. Social media users flooded TikTok with comments about his appearance after fan-recorded video surfaced from the show.
“okay can someone tell me if he is okay?” One person commented on the video.
“Hope he is ok his face looks swollen,” another posted.
“He looks so different,” a third user said.
Moore acknowledged he had neglected his health for years before the scare forced him to seek medical attention. He told Lawrence he had avoided doctors for roughly a decade, influenced by the stoic attitude of his grandfathers.
“I hadn’t gone to the doctor, up until last year, in probably 10 years … My grandfathers greatly influenced me, and they were the type that it’s like, if a limb’s hanging off and you’re working, you just kinda tape it back up and go for it, so I was the same way,” he explained.
The neck diagnosis came after an already turbulent year for the singer. In July, Moore revealed during a show in Knoxville, Illinois, that he had spent 30 days in rehab after his drinking “got out of control,”. He stepped away from touring earlier this summer to address his health before returning to the road.
In the viral moment that first triggered widespread concern, fans at the Virginia concert noticed Moore’s fuller neck and face, sparking immediate speculation about possible illness or other health problems. The benign diagnosis finally put those rumors to rest, though it left the singer with a permanent physical reminder of the scare.
Lawrence suggested Moore could lean into his new look with a country music nickname, joking that “George Jones was called the Possum because he had beady little eyes. Maybe you can become the Chipmunk or something.”
The Poyen, Arkansas native has notched 11 No. 1 hits on Billboard’s Country Airplay chart and won the ACM Award for New Artist of the Year in 2014. He is now back on tour, with upcoming shows scheduled in Westbury, NY, and Montclair, NJ.