Johnny Ruffo reveals his brain cancer battle on 7 News Spotlight

Singer and actor Johnny Ruffo speaks out about his long battle with brain cancer in a new documentary, which is expected to reveal if his treatment has been successful.

Johnny Ruffo lays bare the anguish behind his long-running battle with brain cancer on Sunday in a wrenching interview with Channel 7’s current affairs vehicle 7 News Spotlight.

The episode with the one-time soapie prince will culminate in Ruffo receiving a “life or death” diagnosis after his latest six months of treatment.

In an advance transcript seen by Sunday Confidential, Ruffo, who first came to prominence as a contestant on The X Factor in 2011, takes viewers inside his fight to beat the disease which first struck the popular 33-year-old back in 2017.

Johnny Ruffo during his chemo treatment this year for brain cancer.

Johnny Ruffo has been battling the deadly disease since 2017.

“The day that it truly sunk in was maybe, I don’t know, three or four weeks into radiotherapy,” Ruffo says of his early days post-diagnosis.

“I was at home one day, and I was watching television, and I just went to, like this, just scratch my hair, and I pulled my hand forward and I had a whole clump of hair in my hand, and I just broke down and I cried and cried and cried.

“And I went and sat in the shower and I just ripped all my hair out and I cried so much, and it was the worst day of my life. It was horrible.”

After several rounds of chemotherapy and radiation the former Home And Away star was declared cancer free, but the illness returned late last year with Ruffo revealing a series of seizures had sent him back to the emergency room.

“I found myself struggling to remember so many, many things and I had 11 seizures in four days,” Ruffo says of his relapse back in November.

His long-time girlfriend Tahnee Sims also reveals the trauma of seeing Ruffo return to hospital for another round of cancer treatments, saying she had “dark thoughts” throughout the ordeal which began – coincidentally – on her 27th birthday.

“He was, I would say, semiconscious for probably like nine days,” Sims says of the early hospital stint.

“There are dark thoughts where I’m like, ‘Is this … like, is this it? Is this where I say goodbye in the bloody hospital after everything?’ So, those, those are, there are definitely dark times. Like, I’m not gonna lie.”

Johnny Ruffo with his long-time girlfriend Tahnee Sims. Picture: Supplied

In the months following, Ruffo has been shadowed by 7 News’ Denham Hitchcock, with the in-depth interview and subsequent MRI test results – believed to reveal if his brain cancer surgery and treatment has been successful – to air during the program.

Confidential understands Ruffo will follow up the 7 News Spotlight special with the release of his first single in four years, his follow-up to Broken Glass released in 2017.

Also featured in Seven’s news special, Ruffo’s former Home And Away co-star Lynne McGranger, who has played Irene Roberts in the long-running soap for 27 years, revealing she and the cast of the show are emotionally awaiting the MRI results.

“(I) just hope and pray that the prognosis is good, and that he comes through the other end,” she says.