In his first Depend “Don’t Be Afraid Hero” commercial earlier this year, Deion Sanders dropped a line, “It helped to give me my life back,” after overcoming bladder cancer a little over a year ago. The commercial featured Depend’s Fresh Protection Guards, designed to help with bladder leakage. At that time, Sanders had been dealing with bladder leakage after undergoing surgery to remove his bladder following his cancer diagnosis.

Subsequently, surgeons created a neobladder, a bladder-like reservoir using a section of Sanders’ small intestine. While Sanders was considered cancer-free after the surgery, he continued to deal with the leakage, prompting him to partner with Depend. Now, the former NFL star has opened up about his struggles post-surgery.

“I am dead serious. I depend on Depend,” said Sanders on The Basement with Tim Ross podcast. “You have no idea. I’m sitting up there in the bed, I can’t control. I got to know. The bladder don’t know me. I don’t know it. We just get to know each other.

“I’m like, ‘Dawg, come on, man. You got to stop this. You got to stop. Come on now. You got to let me at least try to make it to the bathroom.’ Like, it was on. It was real. But you have no idea how many calls or DMs or whatever somebody calls somebody to get to me to say, ‘Hey man, I’m dealing with the same thing.'”

It was back in 2025 when Sanders underwent a routine CT scan related to his history of vascular problems. The scan unexpectedly found a mass on his bladder. He was referred to Dr. Janet Kukreja, director of urologic oncology at the University of Colorado Cancer Center and UCHealth University of Colorado Hospital.

His doctors described his tumor as very high-risk, while Dr. Kukreja explained that the tumor had invaded through the bladder’s inner wall. However, it hadn’t invaded the bladder’s muscular layer. Per UCHealth, Sanders had an option to keep the bladder and undergo a prolonged course of bladder-directed treatment involving repeated procedures and chemotherapy delivered directly into the bladder.

“And now you’re hearing you have cancer,” Sanders said when he first found out his cancer diagnosis.

“And when you hear that, my brother, that’s almost like hearing a death sentence… If you ain’t together, if you ain’t right. See, we always talk about our faith until our faith is tested. We always brag about our faith until our faith is tested. We always claim no weapons formed against me will prosper until that weapon is formed. And that weapon knows you and hits you. It hits you with your name on it. So yeah, we do that. But I never flinched, man.”

However, Deion Sanders elected the more definitive option: Radical cystectomy, under which Sanders’ bladder was removed. The surgery took place back in May 2025, with a neobladder essentially constructed using a small section of Sanders’ small intestine.

While a neobladder can provide much more normal urinary function than having an external bag, it isn’t biologically identical to the original bladder. It led Sanders to deal with difficulty in controlling his urine following the operation.

“I can’t pee like used to pee. It’s totally different,” Sanders had said earlier. “I depend on Depends if you know what I mean. I cannot control my bladder. So I get up to go to the bathroom already 4-5 times a night. And I’m sitting there waking up like my grandson. We in the same thing. We got the same problem right now. We’re going through the same trials and tribulations.”

But after many people reached out to him and shared that they were facing the same struggle, Deion Sanders ultimately decided to bring his story to life by featuring in a Depend commercial. Now, Sanders is bladder cancer-free, and through his partnership with Depend, he is openly discussing the lifestyle changes he has made as he continues his recovery from bladder cancer.