Streamer Ninja opens up on cancer battles: 'I'm playing defence the rest of my life'

Tyler 'Ninja' Blevins has opened up about his journey battling and beating skin cancer twice in the space of two months, saying he's grateful to know what to look for but feels he's playing "defence for the rest of [my] life".

Ninja is one of the world's biggest streamers with tens of millions of followers across streaming and social media platforms, regularly streaming Fortnite and, more recently, Marvel Rivals.

After having routine skin checks with doctors initially noticing an unusual mole on the underneath of one of his feet, in March 2024, Ninja who was 33 at the time was diagnosed with melanoma.

This was removed, along with another nearby mole as a precaution, and he was thankfully cancer-free after the procedure.

However just two months later, he spotted another one he didn't feel looked right, had it removed - and that also turned out to be melanoma.

Again, he was cancer-free following a procedure to remove it, but Ninja now feels he will play his whole life on "defence" looking for them.

Tyler 'Ninja' Blevins has been diagnosed with melanoma twice and has thankfully overcome it on both occasions / Getty Images

Speaking with indy100, Ninja said: "I've had moles all over my body since I was a kid, nothing crazy. We moved to Florida and my wife said with the amount of sun and exposure we're now getting, let's get checked out ahead of a holiday to the Bahamas.

"We went to this place, they checked everything and it looked fine but they saw a mole on my foot and they said 'let's keep an eye on this'. I was like 'okay...' For some reason, my wife didn't like the vibes of that and the way this specific spot was.

"She ended up scheduling another one with a place a little bit closer to us and a couple of weeks later, they did the same thing and one of the doctors looked at my foot and wanted to take a little piece of it as she didn't like the look of it at all.

"In the sample, it came back as super early melanoma. We immediately scheduled to get it fully removed."

It was in recovery when Ninja realised the seriousness of what had happened.

"When I was sitting on the couch, not being able to walk for a couple of days, I just had this moment of vulnerability where I thought 'life is short, anything can happen'," he said.

"You don't feel it either, I guess that's the case with any cancer that's super early, your body doesn't feel anything and that can be really scary. I was in shape, I was healthy, eating relatively well, exercising and I didn't feel like I had something that would kill me.

"It was eye-opening. I can't really describe it. I got really lucky that I caught it early."

Ninja was cancer-free after the successful procedure but then, just two months later, he was diagnosed with melanoma again on a different part of his body.

"I had another mole that kind of looked different, I'm not a professional, but it was on my right thigh and I was tanning on the beach, I'm sunscreened out of my mind and I'm sat there, just looking at it, thinking 'this looks like the other one'," he said.

"I went in, got it checked out and was told 'it does look odd, we'll remove it' and that came back as super early stage melanoma as well.

"I'm happy I knew it looked weird but once you have one mole like that, you're basically playing defence the rest of your life.

"They were able to get rid of that all as well but having two of those on me at the age of 33 has empowered me and encouraged me to speak my story and let everyone know."

Ninja is streaming for 12 hours on 19 September as part of Gaming for Cause to raise money / Getty Images

Now, to raise money and to encourage people to get checked for signs of skin cancer, Ninja has teamed up with La Roche-Posay to stream for 12 hours on Friday (19 September) on his Twitch channel as part of Gaming for Cause.

"We're trying to raise $250,000 and awareness of skin cancer," said Ninja. "We're going to be doing six hours of Fortnite, six hours of Marvel Rivals and we're going to be dressing up, we've got collabs and giveaways too, including two PowerGPUs. It's one of the longest streams I've done in a long time.

"I don't think anyone in the gaming or content creator space has experienced skin cancer before and I've been sharing with my community how important it is to get checked with your skin.

"This is something that usually affects much older people but the fact I found something like this on me at my age, I feel like I have an obligation to share this with as many people as possible so they can get checked out.

"It's so important to get checked out - prevention is the best care."

Gaming for Cause will be streamed on Ninja's Twitch channel which can be found here. Ninja will be streaming for 12 hours and the entire stream will last for 24, featuring gamers, streamers, influencers and medical professionals.

For more on Gaming for Cause and to support, click the link here (to note, this link goes live at 8am BST / 3am ET / 12am PT on Tuesday 17 September morning).

Elsewhere from indy100:

• Ninja announces he is cancer-free days after diagnosis
• IShowSpeed x Fortnite collab 'accidentally leaked by Kai Cenat'

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