Former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin was seen tending to her retired NHL star boyfriend, who is suffering from Stage 4 colon cancer.
Palin can be seen spoonfeeding Ron Duguay in a video shared on Instagram on Monday by Duguay’s daughter, Shay Thomas. Palin cared for the New York Rangers star as he rested in a hospital bed.
“Cancer is so frustrating,” Thomas wrote about her father in the post’s caption. “Honestly… nothing prepares you for what this fight really looks like until someone you love is living it every single day."
Palin, 62, and Duguay, 68, have been together since 2022, Page Six first reported. The couple has made a handful of public appearances since then, including a policeman’s ball in 2023. John McCain’s former running mate appears in several photos in the Instagram video posted by Duguay’s daughter.
The hockey star revealed his diagnosis to Page Six on Tuesday, explaining that his battle with stage 4 cancer began about a year ago. The cancer started in his colon and has since taken both his appendix and gallbladder.
“I find it extremely hard asking for funds for all these costs I’m going through,” he told the outlet. “Normally, I’m helping others.”
Duguay, who played on the 1979 Rangers team that made it to the Stanley Cup Finals, said that cancer treatments are “so freaking costly” and that the disease “sucks the life out of you.”
Thomas, along with Duguay’s other daughter, Amber Stavros, whom he shares with his ex-wife Robin Bobo, started a GoFundMe to help pay for his cancer treatments, setting a $100,000 goal.
“Our dad has never been someone who asks for help…especially when it comes to money," Thomas wrote in the GoFundMe. “He has always tried to handle everything on his own and didn’t want to burden anyone else with what he’s going through.”
“But after many conversations as a family, we decided to create this fundraiser for him because we’ve seen firsthand the weight this battle has placed on him, both physically and financially.”
The fundraiser has raised over $60,000 as of Wednesday afternoon.
The couple was spotted together in New York City at a Rangers game during Palin’s defamation retrial in April 2025, where she lost the libel lawsuit she filed against The New York Times in 2017.
Duguay supported the former Alaska governor at her first trial in 2022, but was not present at the opening statements for her 2025 appearance.
“Oh, he’s battling a health issue right now, but otherwise very well,” Palin told reporters regarding Duguay’s absence at the trial.
Representatives for Sarah Palin did not immediately return a request for comment.
