While appearing on an episode of the “Diary of a CEO” podcast, Michael Bublé was asked by host Steven Bartlett about a time where he felt his priorities shifted, prompting Bublé to open up about his son Noah’s battle with liver cancer. “My son’s cancer diagnosis rocked my world,” Bublé began. “It pulled the curtain from over my eyes. And that was a sledgehammer to my reality. And I will never be carefree and that’s okay. It is a privilege for me to exist and that pain, the fear, the suffering that comes with those sort of things is I guess it’s part of that beautiful, this life.” Bublé’s son Noah was diagnosed with liver cancer in 2016 at age 3. Thankfully, he has been in remission since 2017.

In the podcast episode, Bublé shared that he thinks he was going through a crisis before his son got sick, making it an even more eye opening experience. “I don’t think I had my priorities straight. I mean my family was always my love but I don’t think I was a terrible guy but dude, it was blinders. Career. Ambition. How do I become the baddest, biggest, best. You know, more ego, more power, more money,” he shared. “And on Halloween, however many years ago that was, dude it’s like life was lived with a curtain in front of me. Like a filter. And the moment that they said this is what’s happening, that reality hit me. Filter gone. And I mean, in a moment. In one moment. Gone. And I went, ‘Ok. This is it. This is life. This is it, this is what’s important.'”

In 2021, the singer spoke with People about how his son’s cancer diagnosis changed him as a person. “I don’t wish that kind of pain upon any human being, but I do feel that when you’ve truly suffered, when you’ve truly felt fear and loss, it allows you to live a deeper life,” said Bublé. “Once you’ve felt those things, you are able, in context, to truly feel joy, gratitude and happiness.”