Michael Douglas lied about his throat cancer, he revealed.

In a shocking new interview, Douglas admitted that he didn't ever have advanced throat cancer, which he announced in August 2010.

What?

Yes, really. Douglas revealed that he actually had tongue cancer, not stage IV throat cancer. So why did he lie?

Publicity, duh.

Douglas admitted that he knowingly lied to the press and public regarding his health during an interview on the UK talk show This Morning. The interview, with Samuel L Jackson, was for a special Male Cancer Awareness edition of the show.

Douglas's doctors wanted him to pick something a little less, well, gross.

The surgeon said let's just say it's throat cancer. I said, "OK, you don't want to say it's tongue cancer?" I said, "Why's that?" and he said, "Well if you really want to know why, if we do have to have surgery it's not going to be pretty. You'll lose part of your jaw and your tongue and all that stuff." So I said, "OK, sure."

Why? For movie promotion, duh.

 "This was right before I had on a big tour for Wall Street, so we kind of said there's no way we can cancel the tour and say we don't feel well," Michael told Samuel. "You've got to tell them. I said you've just got to come out and just tell them I've got cancer and that's it."

Another juicy tidbit: Douglas said in June that his cancer was caused by contacting HPV from oral sex, although a rep later backpedaled on this.

Sad but, well, maybe how it goes in Hollywood. Do you forgive him for lying? Sound off below!