Skin cancer is the most common type of cancer, with an estimated 1 in 5 Americans receiving a skin cancer diagnosis in their lifetime.

And skin cancer cases are rising, with the American Academy of Dermatology Association reporting that “melanoma rates in the United States have been rising rapidly” in recent years. 

Melanoma is “one of the better-known types of skin cancer,” Verywell Healthreports, but “it’s not all that common. It makes up about 1% of skin cancers. In the U.S., there are about 106,000 cases per year and about 7,100 people die from it annually.”

The most common skin cancer, Verywell Health explains, is basal cell carcinoma, which is diagnosed in approximately 4 million Americans a year. Although treatable if caught early, the outlet reports “if these cancers are not recognized and treated, they can lead to disfigurement, complications and even death.”

Although the American Cancer Society estimates that the average age for a skin cancer diagnosis is 66, celebs of all ages are sharing their diagnoses — and hoping it motivates others to use sunscreen and avoid tanning — as sun exposure is widely regarded as a leading cause of skin cancer.

“Repeated sunburns can lead to irreversible DNA damage and immune suppression. These factors can lead to the development of skin cancer,” Krista M. Rubin, NP, from the Mass General Cancer Center Melanoma Team, told PEOPLE.

“There is clear-cut evidence that excessive UV radiation is a carcinogen,” she says. 

As Rubin tells PEOPLE: “There are no benefits to being in the sun without sunscreen and any exposure to the sun without sun protection is not advised.”

Here’s what Kevin Jonas, Hugh Jackman, Christie Brinkley, Gordon Ramsay and others have shared about their skin cancer diagnoses, and why they want everyone — and their families — to be safe in the sun.

Gordon Ramsay

The celebrity chef shared on Instagram in August 2025 that he had surgery to remove basal cell carcinoma from the side of his jaw, and he included photos of the bandage underneath his ear and the resulting stitches.

“Please don’t forget your sunscreen this weekend ❤️,” he urged his followers in the caption.

Hugh Jackman

“Put some sunscreen on,” the Deadpool & Wolverinestar pleaded with his followers in an Instagram reel in April 2023. Appearing with a bandage on his nose, Jackman revealed that he’d had biopsies done for basal cell carcinoma.

The actor’s first skin cancer diagnosis came in 2013, after then-wife Deborra-Lee Furness told him “to get the mark on my nose checked. Boy, was she right!”

The actor has since had multiple skin biopsies done on his nose — using his health struggle as an opportunity to urge his fans to “please get skin checks often, please don’t think it won’t happen to you.”

After the 2023 biopsy, Jackman urged fans to “put some sunscreen on.” He added, “You’ll still have an incredible time out there. Please be safe.”

On The Howard Stern Show in December 2025, he revealed he’s had “like six skin cancers,” and he knew that growing up in Australia put him more at risk.

The Greatest Showman star continued, “Even after the first one I had, I was like, ‘Ah, but it’d still be good to get a tan when I go away.’ I’m like, what was I thinking? You’re an idiot.… Be the pasty skin guy. Who cares?”

Kevin Jonas

The Jonas Brothers guitarist shared an Instagram reel of himself “getting a basal cell carcinoma removed from my head,” he explained in a June 2024 post.

The Camp Rock alum posted a close-up of the mark on his skin, calling it an “actual little skin cancer guy.”

It “started to grow, and now I have to get surgery to remove it,” Jonas explained, ending his post with a plea for his fans.

“Make sure to get those moles checked, people!”

Christie Brinkley

Brinkley shared that she’d had basal cell carcinoma removed from the side of her face, sharing that the “good news” is that it was caught “early.”

“I got serious a bit late so now for this ole mermaid/gardener, I’ll be slathering on my SPF 30, reapplying as needed, wearing long sleeves and a wide brim hat,” she said in a March 2024 Instagram post about her diagnosis — something she discovered while accompanying her daughter to a dermatologist appointment.

The supermodel shared that, at the end of her daughter’s appointment, she asked the doctor, “ ‘Do you think you could just look at this?’ … He looked and he goes, ‘We’ve got to do a biopsy immediately.'” 

While Brinkley is now in the clear, she urged her followers to “make your own good luck by making that check-up appointment today. And slather up my friends!”

Michelle Monaghan

After a melanoma diagnosis about 15 years ago, Michelle Monaghan made it her mission to raise awareness about sun safety, as well as what to look for in order to catch skin cancers at an early stage. In recent years, as she noticed an increase of tanning bed content on her teenage daughter’s social media feeds, she took her awareness campaign to the next level by writing a book on the topic, A Kids Book About Sun Safety, to help educate children early about how important SPF is. (As she pointed out in a 2022 video, “80% of sun damage happens before the age of 18.”) She hopes that her book encourages parents to impart to their kids that SPF application “is as much of a part of their health routine as brushing your teeth or going to the dentist.”

Andy Roddick

Tennis star Roddick showed off a visibly inflamed face during a May 2024 episode of his podcast Served, sharing that it was due to a “face laser thing” he’d had as a treatment for skin cancer.

“I’ve dealt with various types of skin cancer since I stopped playing,” said Roddick, whose last professional match was the U.S. Open in 2012.

“[I] had a squamous cell tumor taken out of my lip, probably like five or six years ago,” he continued.

Roddick added, “I think I’m going to be a general kind of hatchet job for the rest of my life. [I] won’t go into the ‘woe was me’ part of it, because nothing is wrong, everything is good but — use sunscreen.”

Roddick, who shares son Hank, 11, and daughter Stevie, 9, with wife Brooklyn Decker, 39, urged his fans to, “Put sunscreen on your kids, especially if they are tennis players.”

“The problem won’t present itself when the kid is 8, but it might present itself when that kid is grown and is 38.”

Teddi Mellencamp Arroyave

Real Housewives of Beverly Hills alum Arroyave has candidly shared the scars of her ongoing struggle with melanoma, revealing in January 2024 that she was finally told by her oncologist that she was “all good. Some atypical areas, but no melanoma. We’ll have to keep a close watch on you, but all good now.” 

In September 2024, Arroyave was diagnosed with her 13th melanoma.

“Skin checks are essential,” she has said. “We’ve seen how quickly it can turn from one melanoma to 12. So when your doctor says, ‘See you in three months,’ it’s three months.”

Harry Jowsey

Perfect Match star Jowsey revealed that he’d had skin cancer removed from his shoulder in an April 2024 TikTok video.

Although he joked “If you’re a freckly little frog like me, go get a mole map and get your body checked because you never know,” Jowsey admitted that the diagnosis was “very scary.”

The former Dancing with the Stars contestant urged his followers to get their “skin checked, wear your sunscreen and be a little bit more responsible.”

Alexa Bliss

The WWE star revealed bandages on the side of her face in a March 2023 Instagram post — with a warning to “younger me.”

“You should have stayed out of tanning beds,” Bliss said, adding, “All clear now though!”

The Masked Singer alum shared more details on X, formerly known as Twitter, writing “There was a spot on my face yes — that had gotten worse.” 

A biopsy confirmed it was basal cell carcinoma, and Bliss shared that “During my procedure doc also found other squamous cells. Was a quick and easy procedure. Glad I always get my skin checked😊.”

Janelle Brown

Sister Wives star Janelle Brown shared that at first, she thought she had a cold sore on her lip.

“It never developed and just stayed,” she wrote in a March 2021 Instagram post. ”Over the next year or so it slowly increased in size.” 

The mark, she said, looked like scar tissue, and when she finally got it checked out, the diagnosis was “basal cell carcinoma, skin cancer, non malignant, but it still needed to be removed.”

She shared that she’s always been vigilant about using sunscreen, writing, “You have to know that I am very very careful to always apply sunscreen. I have always burned so easily so really cannot go out, ever, without some sort of protection.”

She ended her post urging her followers to always see their doctor of they notice something on their skin.

 “I hope this share will be helpful to some. I am sharing to say that, even if it seems like it couldn’t be skin cancer, it doesn’t hurt to have your doctor look at it 💗”

Jamie Campbell

“I would never, ever have considered putting on sunscreen to drive,” Campbell, a Toronto Blue Jays sportscaster for Sportsnet, told TODAY.

But as Campbell shared, his dermatologist told him that he had precancerous skin growths — the result of sun exposure from his car window.

The red marks came from photodynamic therapy, which he explained entailed applying a cream, called a photosensitizing agent, to his face for three hours.

The cream kills precancerous cells under red light, something Campbell told TODAY felt like “someone holding a blowtorch to your face.”

He said he shared his story to alert others about the hidden dangers of not wearing sunscreen — even when you’re just driving.

“The benefit of me doing this is that I have heard from many, many people who have changed their habits,” he told TODAY.

Sarah Ferguson, the Duchess of York

On the heels of her breast cancer diagnosis, which caused the Duchess of York to undergo a mastectomy in June 2023, she shared that she’d been diagnosed with malignant melanoma at the start of 2024.

“The Duchess wants to thank the entire medical team which has supported her, particularly her dermatologist whose vigilance ensured the illness was detected when it was,” a representative said in a statement. “She believes her experience underlines the importance of checking the size, shape, color and texture and emergence of new moles that can be a sign of melanoma.”

In March 2024, PEOPLE reported that the Duchess had learned the skin cancer had not spread — but would need to be vigilant with checkups every 12 weeks.

Tyler ‘Ninja’ Blevins

Blevins — the top streamer on video game platform Twitch, where he’s known as Ninja — shared that he’d been diagnosed with melanoma at a routine dermatological skin check appointment made by his wife Jessica.

“I’m still in a bit of shock but want to keep you all updated. A few weeks ago I went in to a dermatologist for an annual skin/mole check that Jess proactively scheduled for me. There was a mole on the bottom of my foot that they wanted to remove just to be careful,” Blevins wrote on X (formerly known as Twitter), in March 2024. 

“It came back as melanoma, but they are optimistic that we caught it in the early stages. 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,” he added. 

“I’m grateful to have hope in finding this early, but please take this as a PSA to get skin checkups,” said Blevins, who shared in April 2024 that he was “officially cancer free.”

People

When wildlife TV personality Forrest Galante sat down for his monthly call with YouTube consultant Paddy Galloway, he received some bad news.

No more turtles.

Galante has 2.5 million YouTube subscribers. He’s been producing wildlife programming for more than a decade, including a docuseries on Animal Planet and a show on the History Channel. He owns his own production company. Generally speaking, Galante’s got a good feel for what his audience wants. 

But it was Galloway, something of a guru in the still-burgeoning YouTube creator economy, who identified that whenever Galante showed turtles in his videos, viewer engagement dropped. It was consistent and significant.

“Maybe it’s just turtles are more commonplace and they’re kind of slow and they don’t really do much,” Galloway said in an interview. “We noticed three or four videos in a row, when Forrest was showing turtles, the viewers were just kind of disengaged, and they were leaving.”

This is the kind of insight that many of the most popular YouTube creators, including Jimmy Donaldson, known to the world as MrBeast, and sports creator Jesse Riedel, also known as Jesser, have paid Galloway to provide. 

As YouTube creatorship cracks open millions, or potentially even billions, of dollars for the most-watched personalities, Galloway has made a name for himself as one of the best of a growing class of YouTube consultants — a bona fide YouTube whisperer.

“I think he’s an absolute genius,” said Galante. 

“Super smart guy,” Riedel told CNBC.

“I don’t want to say Paddy has changed my life completely,” said Humphrey Yang, a former financial advisor whose YouTube channel has more than 2 million subscribers. “But he’s definitely helped a lot.”

YouTube’s media dominance

YouTube will showcase many of its top creators on Wednesday in New York City’s Lincoln Center for its annual upfront advertising presentation, which it calls Brandcast. Like YouTube’s influence in modern media, the event has grown in size and prestige every year as YouTube’s viewership share rises.

YouTube makes up 12.7% of all streaming in the U.S., according to Nielsen’s most recent “The Gauge” report. Netflix is second with 8.4%, followed by Disney with 5%.

Sixty-seven million people consider themselves online content creators, according to a 2025 Goldman Sachs report. That number could rise to more than 100 million by 2030, Goldman estimates.

About 10,000 U.S. YouTube channels have more than 1 million subscribers, according to a YouTube spokesperson. For many of these creators, YouTube can be a lucrative full-time job. But to make a business out of the largely free platform, videos need to get consistent clicks — preferably in the millions.

With YouTube’s recommendation algorithm constantly evolving, many creators have been turning to strategists to maintain success on the platform.

“From zero [subscribers] to 1 million, you don’t need it, but from 1 million to 10 million, or 1 million to 100 million, you definitely need a strategist,” Aniket Mishra, a YouTube growth strategist, told CNBC.

In recent years, videos best watched on TV, rather than on mobile devices, have surged in popularity as YouTube has taken over more and more connected-TV viewing, rivaling subscription streaming services such as Netflix and Disney+.

Creators say the Alphabet-owned platform has responded by favoring longer videos, often exceeding 30 minutes. That shift means higher production value and bigger investment from creators. It also means the potential to earn more money.

Since 2021, YouTube has paid out over $100 billion to creators, and an increasing share of that money is flowing to those producing content for bigger screens, YouTube said. The number of channels earning more than $100,000 from TV screens jumped 45% year over year, the company reported.

Regardless, success on the platform remains a simple task of getting viewers through the door, and these strategists maintain that they are the best equipped to optimize a creator’s videos.

“The reason people pay us top dollar is because we have been doing it for the longest, and we have the best success rate,” Galloway said. “Our average increase in views after a year — so, year-on-year after working with us — is 350%.”

The YouTube whisperer

Galloway’s interest in YouTube consulting began out of self-interest. He started posting YouTube videos of his own in 2006, just a year after the service first began, and wanted to figure out why certain videos went viral so his own could gain popularity, he told CNBC. 

Within a few years, Galloway’s search for the ingredients of virality became the subject of his videos. He began creating self-dubbed “YouTube Masterclass” videos such as “How Peter McKinnon gained 1 million subscribers in under 1 year” and “Here’s How Mr Beast BLEW UP – How He Grew His YouTube Channel.”

Galloway grew his channel to about 500,000 subscribers, and the videos got Donaldson’s attention. Galloway began working directly for Donaldson, providing him with strategy ideas. Donaldson is now the undisputed king of YouTube with 483 million subscribers. 

Galloway worked with Riedel from 2021 through January of this year, encouraging him to change his focus from daily vlogs to bigger concept ideas that pulled in more viewers.

“He was like, ‘You need to make videos that anybody can enjoy,’” Riedel said. “A lot of my videos were personal joke after personal joke. Right in the intro, if you watched it and you didn’t know me or my jokes, you’d be like, ‘What am I watching?’”

After years of plateauing at roughly 3 million subscribers, Riedel saw his subscriber number begin to soar. Today, Riedel is the largest sports-focused creator on YouTube with more than 41 million subscribers.

Galloway’s secrets often center around two simple concepts: headline and thumbnail image.

“We will deliberate a title — just one title — for like 30 minutes,” said Yang, who’s worked with Galloway since early 2022. “Changing a couple of the words in the title can have a huge impact on how the actual video does.”

Galloway has a staff of seven people who analyze what’s working on YouTube and how to create the best content target to perform well on the platform. He also owns three other companies, including one, Upright Media, that helps with the production and editing of videos.

Galloway’s largest clients have daily Slack communication with his team to discuss thumbnails and to run detailed diagnostics of video performance. 

What’s the return on investment?

At his peak, Galloway said, he had a waitlist of 5,000 people and was only able to work with about 10 clients at a time.

His services aren’t cheap.

Galloway typically charges flat fees for his work “starting in the $15,000 a month range” he said, though rates can go “considerably higher” depending on the project. That price gets clients full-time service — “in the weeds with you every day,” he said.

“It was like, ’Oh my god, we’re paying this big amount of money for this unknown factor, will we ever get a return?” said Galante, of the turtle-light wildlife videos. 

Strategist Mishra said he works primarily with business owners who have built YouTube channels around their products or services. He said he charges between $1,500 and $12,000 a month, depending on how much work he takes on, and said the creators who hire him have already figured out the basics on their own and hit a ceiling.

Mishra said his advice is often to study what is already working in a certain niche and replicate it.

“Copy with taste,” he said. “It’s very important that you have some kind of unique angle, but make sure the formatting of the videos, the pacing and everything else is similar to an outlier idea that is already proven in the niche.”

And while these strategists can’t promise guaranteed subscribers or views, they say their value lies in familiarity with what the platform rewards.

“What I do is I promise you knowledge, and hopefully with enough knowledge, growth comes next,” said Mario Joos, who spent nearly three years as retention director for MrBeast. “The algorithm will just reward what people want to watch.”

Though the highest level of advisory services can run into the thousands of dollars, an initial call with a YouTube coach can cost as little as $250, Joos said. He described the next level of service as “consultant” — someone who is providing advice but not actually helping a creator implement it. That’s Joos’ role today, he said.

The final rung is pure strategist — a role Joos had when he was working with MrBeast, he said, and the rung Galloway falls into.

“Now it’s not just like you’re telling the creator to execute on the knowledge. You are applying the knowledge,” said Joos. “You leave notes on videos. You go through the ideation process. And when there’s 100 ideas on the table, you look into them, you think about them, and you may even come up with the ideas. So that’s what a strategist does there. They have expertise.”

YouTube’s evolving trends

For YouTube’s most popular creators, the platform offers some consultant-like services for free, including thumbnail art guidance, guest ideas and suggestions for video introductions, according to Reed Fernandez, a strategic partner manager for YouTube’s top creators since 2021.

Fernandez is one of several hundred strategic partner managers for YouTube around the world who focus on the top 10% of YouTube creators. Fernandez’s specific team works with about 100 creators in the U.S., he said. Some of his clients include Brittany Broski, Dude Perfect and Alix Earle. 

Fernandez’s team typically approaches the creators it wants to help, based on perceived growth opportunity on the platform, Fernandez said. That makes the partnership beneficial for both YouTube and the individual creator, boosting overall engagement on the site.

“We’re looking for things like: Do we see them growing a lot year over year? We think they’re a big bet that we should try to put our full force behind to help them succeed on the platform,” said Fernandez.

Beyond consultant services, YouTube also connects some of these creators with speaking events and press junkets to extend reach and boost awareness.

Fernandez’s team can also offer insider tips on monetization, he said. He used the example of a creator whose videos were consistently just under the 8-minute threshold to qualify for mid-roll advertisements. Making their videos just 30 seconds longer, he told the creator, could make a significant difference in their earnings.

But even with YouTube’s internal support, many creators still turn to outside strategists to go deeper on the technical side.

When a viewer clicks on a YouTube video, watches it through, shares it or leaves a comment, YouTube registers that as a positive signal of interest. Videos that consistently generate those responses get surfaced more broadly and pushed onto the homepage, into recommendations and in front of new audiences.

Joos said his expertise sits specifically in retention, understanding not just whether a video performs, but exactly when viewers stop watching and why. 

YouTube Studio, the backend dashboard that gives creators detailed statistics on their content, includes a retention chart that tracks audience drop-off. YouTube strategists use that data to inform everything from pacing decisions to keeping the viewer engaged until the end of the video.

Gabriel Leblanc-Picard, co-founder of Upload Strategy and the former head of ideation for MrBeast, said simplicity is the most reliable formula for success on the platform.

“Dim it down to like, if a 6-year-old could understand it,” he said. “People don’t want to watch something that is complicated, even the language that you use.”

During his time at MrBeast, Leblanc-Picard said he filtered through roughly 10,000 ideas, constantly looking for concepts that could expand the channel’s audience. One challenge he was given: Attract more female viewers to a channel whose fanbase he described as mostly “11-year-old boys.”

His answer was to develop a video about being stranded in the woods with an ex-girlfriend. 

A video titled “Survive 30 Days Stranded With Your Ex, Win $250,000” was posted in March and has already surpassed 120 million views.

“At the end of the day, you’re making content for people,” Leblanc-Picard said. “The algorithm will reward what people want to watch.”

CNBC

Céline Dion’s love life has been quiet since the death of her husband René Angélil, but reports indicate she is open to finding love again. The “My Heart Will Go On” singer’s husband died in January 2016 after having throat cancer for many years. In addition to the tragedy of losing Angélil, Dion had major health issues of her own as she was diagnosed with stiff person syndrome, an autoimmune disorder, in 2022. Fortunately, Dion has responded well to treatment and even announced in March that she would be performing comeback shows. 

On the heels of her health turning around, the Canadian-born singer has reportedly considered playing the field again. “Céline is in a much better place these days and starting to feel like herself again, which has opened the door to the idea of dating,” a source told Closer Weekly in a piece published on April 10. “No one will ever replace René, he will always be her one true soulmate, but she’s reached a point where she feels ready to have some companionship in her life,” they told the outlet. The insider added that Dion is in “no rush to fall in love again,” but with her health improving, she is willing to give love a chance.

Three years after Angélil’s passing, Dion spoke rather candidly about her outlook on dating at the time. “I don’t date. I’m not ready to date,” she said on “Today.” The “I’m Alive” artist was not open to dating but admitted there were things about having a partner that she yearned for. “I miss to be touched. I miss to be hugged. I missed to be told, ‘You’re beautiful,'” she said. Around the time of that interview, a mysterious man popped into Dion’s life and had people buzzing.

Céline Dion’s rumored tryst

In January 2019, only a few years after René Angélil’s death, Céline Dion was romantically linked to dancer Pepe Muñoz. The pair were spotted holding hands, and the press ran with it, assuming that “The Power of Love” singer had found a new beau. Gossip about her love life became so intense that Dion opened up about the dating rumors and addressed them in an interview with The Sun. “Yeah, there’s another man in my life but not THE man in my life,” she said, referring to Muñoz. Dion explained that the two were close, but it was purely platonic. “We bonded right away as friends, we had a good time. It evolved,” she said before being asked if she considered herself to be single. “By the way, when I say, ‘I am single,’ please, leave me alone. Thanks,” Dion said.

Not everyone was convinced that Dion and Muñoz were simply just BFFs, and later that year, rumors swirled that not only were the two dating, but the dancer had started to take over the singer’s operations as her de facto manager (similar to her late husband). One source told Page Six in 2019 that Muñoz was becoming a problem, but another insider squashed that speculation. “He’s an amazing inspiration for her. He’s inspiring her to take risks,” the source told the publication.

Later that year, Dion set the record straight about her and Muñoz’s relationship. “I don’t date, I don’t have a boyfriend,” she said on “Watch What Happens Live.” Dion then specifically addressed the speculation around her and Muñoz being seen holding hands. “One day I said, ‘He’s gay. He’s not my boyfriend. He’s gay. Calm down,'” she added.

CNBC