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Sam Neill's ex is shedding light on his health in the final days before his death at 78.Australian journalist Laura Tingle, who previously dated the "Jurassic Park" actor, spoke on the "Sydney Mornings" radio show on Tuesday, July 14, in Sydney, sharing that his cancer battle, for which he was in remission, took "a toll" on his body.Neill battled stage 3 angioimmunoblastic T-cell lymphoma and announced he was "cancer-free" in April after undergoing a clinical trial in Australia, where he underwent CAR T-cell therapy to treat the rare blood cancer.Neill's family announced his "sudden and unexpected" death on Instagram July 13, though they did not reveal the cause. The family wrote that the actor "remained cancer-free" and expressed "their deepest gratitude" to his hospital staff "for their incredible care."Neill "had a lot of chemo and a lot of immunotherapy," which "left him pretty compromised in terms of his immune system, and I think his poor old body got a bit exhausted," Tingle added. "He's been pretty sick for the last couple of weeks, and everybody who loved him has been willing him on."USA TODAY has reached out to Neill's rep for comment.Tingle dated Neill from 2018 to 2021, after his 2017 split from wife Noriko Watanabe after 28 years of marriage.Reflecting on undergoing a clinical trial for his blood cancer, the actor said in a 2023 short documentary for Australian Broadcasting Corp.'s "Australian Story" program that it was like "going 10 rounds with a boxer" but "being alive is infinitely preferable to the alternative.""I'm not, in any way, frightened of dying. It's never worried me from the beginning. But I would be annoyed because there are things I still want to do," he continued. "Very irritating, dying. But I'm not afraid of it."Tingle said that was a mindset he held until the end."He loved to work," the author said. "He was largely defined by being on a movie set. He used to say, 'I'm addicted to working,' and I think he was. It was something much more substantial than that; he loved the challenge of it."The actor was best known for his role as the gruff but undeniably lovable paleontologist Dr. Alan Grant in Steven Spielberg's 1993 blockbuster "Jurassic Park." He reprised the role in "Jurassic Park III" (2001) as well as "Jurassic World Dominion" (2022).He also starred in films including "The Hunt for Red October," "The Piano," "Event Horizon," "The Horse Whisperer" and "Bicentennial Man." On TV, Neill earned widespread acclaim for projects such as "Reilly, Ace of Spies," "Merlin," "The Tudors" and a villainous two-season arc in "Peaky Blinders," in which he played ruthless detective Chester Campbell.
