Suzanne Somers Clarifies Swayze Chemo Comments

Actress SUZANNE SOMERS has backtracked over remarks she made about the late PATRICK SWAYZE's cancer treatment, insisting her comments were misconstrued in the press.

The Three's Company star, who suffered her own cancer setback earlier this year (09), infuriated Swayze's grieving pals when she allegedly told a Canadian reporter the actor could have lived longer had he chosen alternative medical treatments instead of chemotherapy.

Somers is said to have told columnist Shinan Govani, "They took this beautiful man and they basically put poison in him. Why couldn't they have built him up nutritionally and gotten rid of the toxins in his body?"

The remarks prompted Swayze's Ghost co-star and devastated friend Whoopi Goldberg to publicly chastise Somers, claiming she "should know better".

But Somers maintains she didn't mean to offend anyone with her comments and simply meant Swayze might have benefited from testing other cancer treatments, like her late pal Farrah Fawcett.

She says, "I said an offhand remark... I shouldn't have said it, as a person in the public eye, even in private, what I say can leak out.

"(But) I had been through this cancer thing myself. I watched Farrah Fawcett die; she was a friend of mine. So it was my frustration from that that maybe if someone had gotten to her in another way (she might still be alive).

"If you are touched by cancer in some way, don't you want to know about other ways (of treatment)?"

Fawcett lost her battle with anal cancer in June (09) after undergoing alternative medical treatment in Germany.

Swayze died in September (09) following a battle with pancreatic cancer.

Somers has previously stated she has written a letter to Swayze's widow Lisa Niemi apologising for her comments.

--IANS-WENN