Ryan Seacrest — a familiar face on American Idol and Wheel of Fortune — let his guard down in an emotional moment on his radio show that left listeners stunned. Fighting back tears, he opened up about his father, Gary, who is battling a difficult battle with prostate cancer. Ryan recounted the moment during a live taping of American Idol when a call from his sister stopped him: his father had been admitted to intensive care. Without hesitation, he flew straight to Atlanta to be by his father’s side. Although Gary has been released from the hospital, his condition still requires constant care, a fact that Ryan admits left him devastated. “Watching someone you love go through this… it’s something that will always stay in your mind,” he said quietly.

Gary developed pneumonia while undergoing chemotherapy. Ryan was hosting a live show for the latest season of American Idol when he got a call from his sister. She told him, “Dad is in the ICU, and how fast can you get here?“

As soon as that episode of Idol ended, Ryan hopped on a plane and flew to Atlanta. At the hospital, doctors were talking about an “emergency surgery” they believed Gary needed to undergo.

“The night that I got there, the conversation they were having with [his dad] about an emergency surgery was a life or death conversation, and I’ve never seen my strong, very smart father with the look on his face that he had…and the concern, and looking at me to help guide what decisions should be made in this moment,” an emotional Ryan shared.

Gary chose not to undergo surgery. Ryan visited his dad in the hospital every day, and stayed in Atlanta so he could be involved in his care and conversations with the doctors. He said:

“When you see a parent suffering, and when you see them going through this, and you don’t understand it yourself, you’re just listening to all the different doctors and trying to make sense of what they’re trying to suggest and do. I didn’t want to miss trying to understand who these people were that were taking care of my father.”

Ryan Breaks Down On Air, Says “This Is A Hard Thing To See”

Ryan acknowledged how it’s not just the cancer, but the treatments, that take a toll on his dad’s body:

“When this happens to somebody or someone really close to you that you love, this is a hard thing to see, because the treatments that are commonly recommended can be barbaric to the system.“

He said there was a time when his dad couldn’t get up, eat, drink water, or go to the bathroom on his own. The American Idol and Wheel of Fortune host credited his dad’s nurses for helping him regain his strength, saying:

“The nurses are the people that nurture and care and have emotion about their patients. The nurses are the ones that are really looking after them day and night for hours, and I loved the team of nurses.”

Gary has since been released from the ICU. He’s back home in Atlanta, but still needs full-time care. Ryan flies from Los Angeles to Atlanta every weekend to visit him.

Ryan got choked up and paused to regain his composure at one point during the conversation. Then, he said:

“I got the most powerful, good, happy picture from my dad and my mother, who was with him. They went to a beach to sit outside. They just went to look at the water. They can’t do much, but I saw him smile. I saw my mom smile.”

He added, “They’ve been married for over 55 years. They’ve got each other and the pneumonia is gone, but his cancer is not.“

But Ryan is holding out hope, saying he knows his dad is “going to get through this.” Watch him speak about his dad’s cancer battle in the video below.