Tom Green says that during his fight with testicular cancer he had a religious experience in the shower of a house owned by his landlord, William Shatner.
Yes, William Shatner. Green said in the "WTF with Marc Maron" [5] podcast this week that Shatner was once his landlord. And it was in Shatner's house that he decided to try prayer.
It was in the late '90s, a surreal time in Green's life: He had an MTV hit with "The Tom Green Show," he was dating Drew Barrymore, and he was renting a Los Angeles home from the "Star Trek" icon.
"He was a hands-on landlord," Green said. "He'd come pick up the check. Captain Kirk would come pick up the check, occasionally. He was a nice guy. He was a really cool guy."
Maron asked Green how he ended up living in Shatner's home.
"I just got lucky, man. He had a house, one of his properties that he owns," Green said. "It was for rent and I went there and while they were showing they house they said, by the way, your landlord's William Shatner."
Green said he was never particularly religious, but began to pray one day at the house that he would survive the cancer.
"I was sitting in the shower, sitting down in the shower, scared, assuming death was imminent. I figured if I'm so unlucky that I'm goinna get testicular cancer now, while all this great stuff is happening, then I'm going to be one of the ones that dies from it too. Literally, just panic stricken," Green said.
"And I remember praying to God for real, like he was listening to me and he was actually gonna possibly do something about it."
Green said he wasn't religious before, but decided it was time to give prayer a try.
"If there is a chance that this is real, I'm not gonna take any chances here," Green said. "I'm gonna pray to this God right now," he remembered thinking. "And I did that quite a bit. And I'm alive. So who knows?"
Green has recently devoted himself to standup comedy after hosting an online show and competing on "Celebrity Apprentice." Shatner's publicist did not immediately respond to a request for comment.