Former MuchMusic host Kim Clarke Champniss undergoes surgery for throat cancer

Kim Clarke Champniss, a former MuchMusic host who interviewed some of music’s biggest stars in the 1980s and ’90s, says he has undergone “radical” surgery after his throat cancer returned.

In a Facebook post earlier this week, Champniss says surgery was his “only option” to remove an egg-sized tumour.

As a result, the former TV personality says he has lost his “natural voice” forever and will not be able to speak for two months while waiting for a voice prosthesis.

On his website, Champniss says he joined MuchMusic in Toronto in the mid-1980s to host and produce its rock and roll desk, he then became a special assignment reporter for The New Music.

Champniss says he produced a number of documentaries and interviewed countless artists, including U2 and The Sex Pistols.

He later went on to manage the new wave band Images In Vogue and launched his own music and media company.

“I want to thank the incredible support of my family, friends, the surgeons and nurses at Toronto General,” Champniss wrote on Facebook.

“Hopefully I will be back entertaining you all very soon.”