Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones said in an interview that an experimental trial drug helped him successfully treat stage 4 melanoma.
The interview will debut in the fifth episode of the Netflix documentary “America’s Team: The Gambler and His Cowboys.”
According to ESPN, the 82-year-old discussed undergoing cancer treatments at MD Anderson in Houston.
Cowboys owner Jerry Jones reveals decade-long stage 4 cancer fight — and how he survived https://t.co/DJS5QGr0pt pic.twitter.com/xw0UHThCBi
— New York Post (@nypost) August 13, 2025
Jones spoke to The Dallas Morning News about his cancer battle.
“I was saved by a fabulous treatment and great doctors and a real miracle [drug] called PD-1 [therapy],” Jones told the outlet.
“I went into trials for that PD-1, and it has been one of the great medicines. I now have no tumors,” he added.
More from ESPN:
Jones told the paper he was diagnosed in June 2010 and began treatment soon thereafter. Over the next 10 years, he said he had two lung surgeries and two lymph node surgeries. Stage 4 melanoma refers to skin cancer that has metastasized to other parts of the body.
According to the American Cancer Society, PD-1 therapy — or programmed cell death-1 — helps “the immune system recognize, and attack cancer cells.”
A stage 4 melanoma diagnosis used to almost always be fatal and treatment aimed merely to slow the disease, control symptoms and possibly extend survival. But recent medical advancements — including immunotherapies and targeted checkpoint inhibitors that help the body’s T-cells fight off the cancer — have given hope that the disease may be brought under control for years.
Advanced cases can have a five-year survival rate of about 50%, with some even longer and some having no signs of the cancer after treatment.
MD Anderson is world-renowned for cancer treatment and clinical trials.
BREAKING: Cowboys owner Jerry Jones said he survived a stage 4 cancer battle that lasted more than a decade and included four surgeries.
Full story: https://t.co/Kkwb7hKCFv pic.twitter.com/uPhU8UoRG5
— Yahoo Sports (@YahooSports) August 13, 2025
The Dallas Morning News shared additional info on the upcoming Netflix documentary:
Early in the fifth episode of Netflix’s America’s Team: The Gambler and His Cowboys, Jones makes reference to undergoing cancer treatments at MD Anderson “about a dozen years ago.”
Netflix conducted more than 40 hours of interviews with Jones during a two-year period. It’s not clear when the interview occurred in which Jones mentioned cancer, without specifying what kind or in what way MD Anderson was treating him.
ADVERTISEMENTThe Netflix documentary’s Episode 5 — “The Shootout at Valley Ranch” — details the unraveling of the relationship between Jones and coach Jimmy Johnson. Jones fired Tom Landry and hired former Arkansas teammate Johnson upon purchasing the Cowboys on Feb. 25, 1989.
Early in Episode 5, Jones said that an MD Anderson physician told him:
“You need to do a lot of meditation. Make a list of 10 people who can just boil your blood. Start with the one at the top and wish for them the greatest things you can wish for.
