Did Stanley Tucci smoke? Citadel star opens up on debilitating oral cancer battle

American actor Stanley Tucci recently opened up about his battle with oral cancer. While appearing on an episode of the Sunday Sitdown on April 30, the 62-year-old star spoke to Willie Geist about his late wife, Kate Spath-Tucci, who passed away from breast cancer in 2009 at the age of 47. He also recounted his reaction after he was diagnosed in 2017:

“My late wife and I, we traveled all over the world trying to find a cure for her. So when I got it, I was completely shocked. I was terrified, absolutely terrified.”

The Devil Wears Prada actor previously stated that a tumor at the base of his tongue "was too large to operate on," leaving him with "high-dose radiation and chemotherapy" as his only treatment options.

Describing his treatment, he said it was "brutal" and "awful." He added:

“I lost 35 pounds. I couldn’t eat. I had a feeding tube for six months and everything tasted like you-know-what and smelled like you-know-what. And it took months and months and months for me to finally be able to eat again and then taste properly again.”

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Stanley Tucci used to smoke but not anymore

While speaking to Cigar Aficionado in 2013, Stanley Tucci revealed that he appreciated fine tobacco but had stopped smoking at the time:

“I haven’t smoked one in a while.”

Recalling his experience with cigars, he said:

“It was one that someone gave me and it was delicious. I went through a phase where I smoked a lot of them and then I stopped. I love it—and I miss it.”

During the interview, Tucci revealed that his grandfather used to smoke cigars called De Nobilis.

“All of the Italian immigrants smoked them. They came four or five to a pack and who knows what they were made of. They were like compacted manure; I tried them a couple of times and I don’t know how he smoked them.”

Stanley Tucci developed his own preference for tobacco through his friends Oliver Platt and Aidan Quinn. It was Quinn who reportedly taught him about cigars.

Describing his favorite cigars, The Lovely Bones actor said that it depended on several factors like the time of the day, what he has eaten, temperature, or if it was taken as an after-dinner drink.

"I don’t mind a strong cigar. It’s like Scotch: You don’t want it to be too peaty. You want a hint of peat, but not the whole bog."

He added that he used to smoke cigars after dinner or while writing or while he was fishing in the reservoirs near his house:

“For me, cigars represent a real working-class person, because of my grandfather, but also someone of affluence. I’m not sure if there’s any in-between there. I suppose you’d call it a cigarette.”

Stanley Tucci can currently be seen in Citadel, alongside Richard Madden, Priyanka Chopra Jonas, Ashleigh Cummings, Roland Møller, Lesley Manville and Caoilinn Springall.