Josh Homme, frontman with rock band Queens of the Stone Age, has announced that he was treated for cancer last year. In an interview with Revolver, he shares few details other than to say he underwent surgery and that it was successful.
Homme, 50, refers to the cancer as “just the cherry on top of an interesting time period”. He is currently in an ongoing dispute over the custody of his children with ex-wife Brody Dalle.
Homme said: “I’m extremely thankful that I’ll get through this, and I’ll look back at this as something that’s fucked up – but will have made me better. I’m cool with that. There’s a lot of stuff I want to do. And there’s a lot of people I want to do that with.”
The long and bitter saga with Dalle has seen both parties file restraining orders against the other, and accuse the other of physical assault. Dalle has accused Homme of head-butting her, and telling her that he fantasised about killing her; Homme has said Dalle had punched him in the face on numerous occasions, among other attacks.
In 2021, Homme’s sons, now aged 11 and 7, filed a restraining order against him though this was denied by a judge. Later that year, Dalle was sentenced to community service after she violated a court order by failing to hand over the younger son to Homme; after the sentencing she defended her actions as “protecting her children”. Homme’s daughter, now 17, was granted a restraining order in 2021, which ended in 2022.
In March that year, Homme was granted temporary sole custody of all three children, pending a custody hearing later this year. A statement in March from Homme’s publicists said that court proceedings had shown the earlier restraining orders filed against him by his children were filed by Dalle’s boyfriend Gunner Foxx, and that he had forged Dalle’s signature for the order relating to his sons.
In the case of his daughter, Homme stated that Foxx took her to court “without the presence of either one of her parents. Prior to the hearing on this matter – at the child’s request and through her own counsel – the order was rescinded.” He alleged that Dalle and Foxx “have not only caused the children emotional harm, but have also put them in great danger”. Neither Dalle nor Foxx has commented in the wake of Homme’s statement. Homme did not comment on the allegations of domestic violence.
Homme does not comment on the custody case in his Revolver interview, saying: “I would never talk bad about the mother of my children. And I will not talk about my children.”
Queens of the Stone Age are releasing a new album, In Times New Roman …, on Friday. Homme adds: “This has been the darkest four years of my life,” an experience that “smashed my old life to pieces, [but] those pieces I’ve been able to build into a ship that’s about to launch”.