Sidney Raz shared his this reaction to backlash he received for announcing that he’d been diagnosed with stomach cancer back in April.
Sidney Raz is responding to criticism.
The influencer (whose real name is Sidney Raskind) spoke out about backlash that he says he received from fans accusing him of profiting of his health battle after sharing his stomach cancer diagnosis online last month.
“If I can disappoint my family,” Sidney said in an interview with Net Influencer published May 12, “I can disappoint people on the internet.”
The 36-year-old—who skyrocketed to social media stardom by posting comedic life hack videos online—added that he decided to post about his cancer diagnosis as a way to broaden the scope of his online presence and fully control his narrative in a more personal way.
“This was a time when I truly just felt like I owned it completely,” Sidney explained. “This was mine. And no one can tell me how to do it.”
And he recently shared a message directly to his critics doubling down on his decision to discuss his diagnosis on social media.
“I am getting the DMs about monetizing off of my cancer, and you are absolutely god damn right,” Sidney said in an April 16 Instagram video. “It is my story to tell.”
“It is my chance to share something in a way that I’ve never had before,” he continued. “I am going to do my best to advocate for research, to raise money, and to help my family any way I can.”
Sidney announced his diagnosis early last month, revealing that doctors discovered his stomach cancer while he underwent genetic testing after he and wife Kelsey Raz lost their daughter in utero at only 26 weeks from Holoprosencephaly, an anomaly that prevents the brain from fully developing.
“It was literally just my daughter’s DNA that saved my life,” Sidney said in a video posted to TikTok April 5, “and now there can be a path forward.”
The content creator noted that, while his wife didn’t have any abnormalities that could explain their late daughter’s rare birth defect, he did the same deletion of CTNNA1 that their baby had.
“Because of that deletion, in recent years, it has been seen to cause certain types of cancer—specifically stomach cancer,” Sidney shared. “I went in for the endoscopy, and today I found out that I have stomach cancer.”
He also pondered his instinct to share the news with so many people online.
“I don’t know why I feel so compelled to post this on the internet,” Sidney said, “but I think it’s because I love the community and I love everything that has happened for me on the internet. But I also want to reassure myself that it’s probably the best case scenario that I could’ve hoped for.”
Presley Ann/Getty Images for TikTokAnd, while he initially stated that he would likely have to have his stomach removed as a result of his diagnosis, he later shared that the surgery had been postponed.
“Since last week’s positive ultrasound I’ve had a lot of conversations about pushing my surgery,” he said later in April. “Since they [sic] ultrasound came back so good, there wasn’t a need to remove my stomach ASAP. And honestly my family and I are not mentally, physically, emotionally, or nutritionally ready.”
