Former President Joe Biden has been diagnosed with an "aggressive form" of prostate cancer, according to multiple reports of a statement from his office released on Sunday.
According to the statement, Biden, 82, was diagnosed after he sought treatment for worsening urinary issues.
“On Friday, he was diagnosed with prostate cancer, characterized by a Gleason score of 9 (Grade Group 5) with metastasis to the bone,” the statement said. “While this represents a more aggressive form of the disease, the cancer appears to be hormone-sensitive which allows for effective management."
The announcement of the illness comes six months after a charged election that saw President Donald Trump win. Biden withdrew from the race in July, after which former Vice President Kamala Harris became the Democratic nominee.
Concerns about Biden's age and health elicited doubt that could secure the election. But he initially insisted that he was fit to run again for the presidency, and he said as much to Complex's Speedy Morman less than two weeks before he withdrew his candidacy.
"I gotta finish the job," Biden said in the interview, which was filmed on July 12, 2024, one day before an attempted assassination of Trump. Biden said at the time that he's "gotten more done than almost any president has in one term."
Biden also called Trump a "real danger to the country" and spoke about rap artists who were vocal about supporting the Republican nominee.
"Well, I’m not sure he has that allegiance, number one," Biden told Morman. "Number two, if you look at his record in terms of African Americans and minorities, it’s abysmal the way he handles everything. The answer is, I don’t know if he has hip-hop artists that are supportive of him.
But I know that I got started in politics because of the African American community," he continued. "When I was a kid, I was a young man in high school and college, my state was segregated by law. I got involved in the movement. And the reason I got elected when I was 29 from a very modest background was because of the Black community."
