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In a note shared to social media, Connolly, 74, cited his ongoing battle with esophageal cancer as the reason for his retirement.

“Although I’m famous as a pessimist, I really haven’t been pessimistic,” Davis told me in 2022, the last time we saw each other, months before he died of esophageal cancer at 76.

Journalist Tony Ortega, who has long covered Scientology, announced in a June 2023 post on his Underground Bunker blog that Rinder had advanced esophageal cancer.

Connolly was diagnosed with esophageal cancer last month and is seeking chemotherapy treatment, a development that one House Democrat told Axios would work against him.

Gastrointestinal cancers, including stomach, liver, esophageal, pancreatic and colorectal cancers, represent more than one-quarter of all cancers.