Dave Hughes cancer shock: Aussie comedian requires 45 stitches after surgery

Aussie comedy royalty Dave Hughes has revealed he has been treated for cancer, going under the knife to remove numerous skin cancers.

Fresh from surgery and looking worse for wear, a shirtless Hughesy took to Instagram on Thursday night to reveal why he was covered in bandages over his arms, chest and back.

Standing in the street next to his car, the comedian’s son asks, “Dad, what happened to you?”

“Well, I’ve had five skin cancers cut off today,” Hughes says before explaining he was about to leave to perform his latest stand-up show Cooked in Cowes, which is a two-and-a-half-hour drive away.

“I’ve got a gig there tonight and the people need me....if I don’t go they don’t have fun and I don’t get paid.”

Alongside the video, Hughes revealed he needed 45 stitches after the surgery.

“What’s 45 stitches between friends? The Big V erases the pain. Cooked is on the way Cowes. It’s Hemsworth country, but Hughesy holds the hammer tonight.”

His revelation was greeted with support from his followers who wished him well and said it was a good reminder to get their skin checked.

“You’re a Tim Burton character now,” one follower joked.

Hughes lost both his parents to different forms of cancer. His mum Carmel to breast cancer in 2023 and his dad Des to prostate cancer in 2010.

He has had two previous run-ins with skin cancer and had lesions cut off in 2017 and in 2021.

In 2021, he told the Herald Sun, “My skin is not meant for this climate. I always joke I should be in Ireland picking potatoes,” he said.

“My wife is always banging on at me about getting my skin checked. She wants to keep me alive, which is nice.”

In a follow-up video message on Instagram, Hughes gave an update on how his gig went before the sold-out crowd.

While mingling afterward, Hughes said, “get told by a bloke that he’s got cancer and hasn’t laughed that hard for years.”

Hughes then took the opportunity to have another jab at the Government over its promised changes to the capital gains tax and negative gearing, and with one follower who had called him a “whinging elite”.

“Happy for the GST I collected last night and fifty per cent of profits (I run real lean so there is profit) to go to pay for Education and Police and Health and other essential services like firefighting. But when first class travelling politicians lie before elections and then implement Tax rises on business and investors ‘for fairness’ when it’s really to pay for their incompetence and corruption, I get my back up. If that makes me a ‘whinging elite’ so be it.”