Michael Richards recently shared that he secretly battled prostate cancer in 2018 and only survived because he decided to undergo a dramatic surgery. The “Seinfeld” star, who played the eccentric Cosmo Kramer, received the stage 1 diagnosis after a checkup showed he had elevated prostate-specific antigen (PSA) levels.

He told People in an interview of receiving the crushing news, “I thought, well, this is my time. I’m ready to go. But then my son came to mind just a few seconds later, and I heard myself saying, ‘I’ve got a 9-year-old, and I’d like to be around for him. Is there any way I can get a little more life going?’” Richards’ doctor recommended removing the comedian’s entire prostate because the biopsy “didn’t look good.” The actor explained, “It had to be contained quickly. I had to go for the full surgery. If I hadn’t, I probably would have been dead in about eight months.”

Having been faced with his mortality, Richards felt inspired to write his forthcoming memoir, “Entrances and Exits,” using a surplus of diaries he had kept over the years. “I had over 40 journals I’d kept over the years and wanted to do a full review of my life. I’m turning 75, so maybe wanting to do that is something that comes with being my age. I wanted to connect with feelings and memory,” he told the magazine. “I’m surprised at how much I was able to remember.” The reclusive star, who made his first red carpet appearance in eight years last month, also will use his memoir to discuss his infamous racist tirade in 2006 after an audience member heckled him.

“He went low, and I went even lower,” he writes in his book, out June 4. “We both ended up at the bottom of the barrel.” The Emmy winner shares that his “Seinfeld” castmates Jerry Seinfeld, Jason Alexander and Julia Louis-Dreyfus all reached out to him in the aftermath of the scandal, but he was “embarrassed” and “concerned about the mess spilling onto them.”

Richards confesses that he still has “some regrets” but believes in the “continuity of the soul,” writing that “screwups in life are necessary.”