Pop Culture

Twitch Streamer Ninja Diagnosed With Skin Cancer at 32: ‘In a Bit of Shock’ (UPDATE)

Ninja's skin cancer was detected early, but the Twitch creator sent a PSA on X for fans to be consistent with health checkups.

Diego Donamaria / Getty Images for SXSW

UPDATED 4/4 6:21 p.m. ET: Twitch creator Tyler 'Ninja' Blevins is officially cancer-free.

On Thursday (Apr. 4), the influencer received successful news after undergoing a surgical excision, which he shared with his X followers. The lesion found on the bottom of his foot was diagnosed as mild atypia and was fully removed was fully removed during the biopsy.

See original story below.

Tyler 'Ninja' Blevins, the most-followed creator on Twitch, recently got a skin cancer diagnosis. Now, the 32-year-old wants fans to be informed about their health.

On X, the Twitch influencer and video game enthusiast shared a statement about the diagnosis, admitting that he was "still in a bit of shock."

"A few weeks ago I went in to a dermatologist for an annual skin/mole check that Jess [Blevins] 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,” Blevins wrote.

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.”

According to the Skin Cancer Foundation, the two main causes of skin cancer are exposure to the sun's ultraviolet rays (UV) and tanning beds. If detected early, skin cancer can be treated with little to no scarring, with the likelihood of being eliminated entirely during the precancerous stage.

In addition to his 19 million Twitch followers, Blevins has a following of 24 million on YouTube. In 2009, Blevins jumpstarted his online career as a Halo 3 player, and nearly ten years later, he began partaking in professional Fortnite tournaments.

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