Def Leppard’s Vivian Campbell says his cancer has returned

Def Leppard’s Vivian Campbell has revealed that his cancer has returned.

The rocker announced in 2013 that he’d been diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma. In 2025 he revealed that he was in remission after undergoing a bone marrow transplant. But in a new interview with El Salvador’s YSKL FM, Campbell says he will once again have to undergo treatment because the transplant wasn’t successful.

Campbell talked about how lucky it was his cancer was caught early and said the winter of 2023 was the only time he worried the cancer “was going to kill me.”

“I got really scared about what was happening and the pace at which it was happening and I realized at that point that I had to do a donor transplant. It was my only hope to survive,” he said. “And that’s what I did. I did that in January of ’25, I did a donor transplant. Unfortunately, it didn’t stick, so the cancer has returned. And, you know, I’m continuing treatments to manage it.”

“I’ll probably have to do another transplant within a few years with another donor to try and see if maybe that would cure me,” he added. “But in the meantime, I’m certainly not slowing down. I’m doing a much with my life as possible.”

Def Leppard is scheduled to play Hollywood, Florida, on Oct. 15, before they launch a tour of Mexico and South America on Oct. 17 in Querétaro, Mexico. A complete list of dates can be found at DefLeppard.com.