Surfing heartthrob Jeremy Flores Shares Brain Tumor Diagnosis and Life-Saving Surgery

"I had to relearn how to speak, write, and read. I suffered significant memory loss. My children had become strangers to me."

The French surf god Jeremy Flores, who famously went on a two-year bender after winning the Pipe Masters in 201o, is one of the better pro surfing stories. Grew up in one of the poorest islands on earth, only to become Quiksilver’s Great Investment when he was 11.

The Next Slater.

Even Kelly said so, specifically, “Jeremy surfs better than I did at his age.”

But life doesn’t always follow the screenplay even if the first two acts are spectacular.

Won the Quik World Pro Juniors, under twelves, fourteens, became European champ, WQS champ and, barely eighteen, was on the Championship Tour, finishing eighth in his debut orbit, rookie of the year, naturally.

In 2011, he won the Andy Irons Most Committed Award after scoring a perfect 20 at Teahupoo on one of the heaviest days of competition.

Won the two Pipe Masters, 2010 and 2017, dirtying up John John’s perfect day when he beat the Hawaiian in the final of the 2017 contest.

In 2019, he ruled the finals at the Quik Pro in Hossegor and beat Italo to become the first Frenchman to win the event. National hero.

Retired after the 2021 season and, shortly after, was told he had an inoperable brain tumour.

You hear about it?

For the first time in four years Jeremy Flores is speaking about the tumour that almost killed him in a documentary called “Dos au Mur” (“Backs to the Wall”) and which premiered in Paris on Wednesday.

“I told myself it was time to talk about it,” Jez told AFP. “I needed to get it off my chest, to send a message to my children and others who might need it. This was clearly the hardest ordeal of my life. For several years, I had a lot of migraines. I was always tired, unmotivated. I thought it was related to all the accidents I’d had while surfing. Until the radiologist showed me the tumor after the MRI, and I really saw its size. It was scary because I was all alone, I didn’t have much information about this disease, and then I saw the doctors’ faces when they gave me the bad news.”

Docs told him he had a tumour at the base of his brain and it was inoperable.

“That explained why I wasn’t feeling my best. The news shattered me,” he says.

The following year he was operated on by the pioneering neurosurgeon Hugues Duffau. He was awake for the entire op. The tumour wasn’t entirely removed and he has to have an MRI every three months to monitor its movements.

But he ain’t dead.

“You have to keep an eye on its size, take it seriously, but above all, you have to keep moving forward. After that, it was a mission. I’d been warned. I had to relearn how to speak, write, and read. I suffered significant memory loss. My children had become strangers to me.”

Jez reckons of all his pals it was Kelly Slater who gave him the most support.

“He called me almost every day, before, during, and after the operation.”

And now?