How Healthy Is Nigel Farage? | His Health and Lifestyle Explained

From car crashes to cancer scares: a look at the health and lifestyle of Britain’s most controversial populist.

Few British politicians have made their private lives as much a part of their public image as Nigel Farage. The pints, the cigarettes, the jokes about “living life to the full” — all are central to his persona. Yet behind that cheerful, beer-and-banter image lies a man who has survived multiple near-death experiences. So, just how healthy is Nigel Farage?

Early Setbacks: Car Crash and Cancer

Farage’s first brush with mortality came in 1985, when he was hit by a car after a night out. The accident left him with severe leg and head injuries; doctors nearly amputated his right leg, and he spent nearly a year in hospital and plaster casts (BBC News).

Barely a year later, in 1986, he was diagnosed with testicular cancer. In his 2015 memoir The Purple Revolution, Farage recounted a harrowing delay in diagnosis:

“My left testicle was as large as a lemon and rock hard. … ‘Keep taking the antibiotics,’ he preached, and that was that.”

“When I had cancer, the incompetence and negligence of the NHS almost killed me, but it has also saved my life.”

IBTimes UK

Surgery was ultimately successful, and Farage later declared himself cancer-free — though the episode shaped his enduring scepticism toward the NHS. As he wrote:

“In the NHS, the system is so battered and poorly run that unless you are really lucky, you will fall through the cracks.”

Sky News

The 2010 Plane Crash

By the 2010 general election, Farage had become the public face of UKIP. On polling day, tragedy nearly struck again when his PZL-104 Wilga light aircraft — towing a “Vote UKIP” banner — crashed after the banner fouled the tailplane.

According to the Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB) report, Farage suffered a punctured lung, fractured ribs, a broken sternum, and spinal injuries (The Guardian). He later joked that he’d “used up all nine lives.”

In later interviews he said: “I’ve got the body of a 70-year-old,” acknowledging lingering back pain and loss of mobility. The crash ended his ability to play golf but not his taste for campaign-trail combat. In his memoir he wrote: “I have now had three near-death experiences — cancer, an accident and a plane crash — and I’ve seen the best and worst of the NHS.”

Lifestyle and the “Pub Politician” Persona

Farage’s lifestyle is as famous as his politics. He smokes heavily and is rarely photographed without a pint of beer in hand. “I’m not a smoothie-drinking metro type,” he once told The Times. “I like a pint and a smoke.”

In his earlier autobiography Fighting Bull (2010), he confessed:

“I’ve got the unhealthiest lifestyle of the lot, but the most energy!”

Despite decades of accidents, surgery, and chronic pain, Farage remains remarkably energetic — hosting radio and TV shows, touring the country, and fronting new political ventures. Health experts might shudder at his habits, but Farage himself has said his stamina comes from being “restless by nature.”

Recent Rumours and Public Denials

In 2025, social-media speculation suggested Farage was seriously ill. He swiftly denied it, blaming the gossip on “bored trouble-makers” and insisting he was simply “tired from work.” No credible report or diagnosis has since emerged, and he continues to appear regularly in public and media roles (The Independent).

Verdict: Resilient, Not Wholesome

So — how healthy is Nigel Farage?

Medically, his record reads like a survival manual: a near-fatal car crash, testicular cancer, a plane crash, and chronic spinal pain. Add a lifetime of smoking and drinking, and few doctors would call him “healthy.”

Yet by another measure — stamina, recovery, and sheer persistence — Farage seems almost indestructible. He’s a man who has literally walked away from wreckage and built a career out of defiance.

“The NHS is so over-stretched that if you can afford private health care, you should take it, particularly for diagnostics and preventative medicine.”

For a politician who has cheated death three times, health is not just a condition — it’s a state of mind. Nigel Farage may not embody wellness, but he certainly embodies survival.