After a long health fight, Julian McMahon, who starred in FBI: Most Wanted and Nip/Tuck, passed away at the age of 56.

In a devastating message released on Friday, Kelly, the actor’s wife, disclosed that the 56-year-old Australian-American had been discreetly fighting cancer.

His wife said : “With an open heart, I wish to share with the world that my beloved husband, Julian McMahon, died peacefully this week after a valiant effort to overcome cancer.”

Julian last appeared in public in March at SXSW in Austin, Texas, when he promoted the psychological thriller The Surfer with Nicolas Cage. Julian was slender at the time.

Kelly, whom he married in 2024, went on to say how much Julian loved his fans and his loved ones and how important acting was to him throughout his life.

“Julian loved life. He loved his family. He loved his friends. He loved his work, and he loved his fans. His deepest wish was to bring joy into as many lives as possible.”

Source: Wikimedia Commons
“We ask for support during this time to allow our family to grieve in privacy. And we wish for all of those to whom Julian brought joy, to continue to find joy in life. We are grateful for the memories,” she added in her statement obtained by Deadline.

The FX series Nip/Tuck made the gifted actor famous for his portrayal of Dr. Christian Troy.

In the campy medical drama, which ran for six seasons from 2003 to 2010, he costarred with Dylan Walsh, who played Sean McNamara.

The actor’s performance in the HBO series Deadwood earned him a Golden Globe nomination in 2004 for Best Actor in a Drama Television Series, but Ian McShane defeated him.

Later, starting in 2020, Julian played Jess LaCroix on the CBS series FBI: Most Wanted. However, after three seasons, Julian abruptly left the show in March 2022.

He first gained notoriety as the lead character Ben Lucini on the Australian television soap opera Home & Away, which ran from 1990 to 1991.

From 1996 until 2000, the actor starred in the American crime drama Profiler as Detective John Grant.

After that, he gained popularity as Cole Turner in Charmed seasons three through five, from 2000 to 2003, until making a comeback as a guest for season seven in 2005.

As the legendary villain Dr. Doom in the Marvel films Fantastic Four (2005) and Fantastic Four: Rise Of The Silver Surfer (2007), the Sydney, Australia native also enjoyed success on the big screen.

In the 2007 supernatural psychological thriller Premonition, he costarred with Sandra Bullock.

Before getting married in a lavish ceremony in 2014 in Lake Tahoe, a lakeside community on the border of California and Nevada, Julian and his wife Kelly had been together for eleven years. It was his third marriage.

From 1999 to 2001, Julian was wed to Brooke Burns, a model and Baywatch star. The two of them have a daughter, Madison Elizabeth McMahon, who is 25 years old.

From 1994 to 1995, he was also notably married to Dannii Minogue, an Australian singer and television personality.

Being the only son of Sir William McMahon, a former Australian prime minister who led the Liberal Party of Australia from 1971 to 1972, Julian likewise has connections to the Australian government.

He talked about his childhood in an interview with the Herald Sun in 2018 as he said, “My Dad… was born in 1908. That’s a very different time to what it was when he was raising me.”

“He must have gone through a strange misunderstanding of how you were parented in 1908 versus how you parent in 1972; it would have been so conflicting. Also how you be a husband in that period of time would have been different.”

He played the Australian Prime Minister in the Netflix murder mystery series The Residence, so his last part was somewhat of a full-circle event.