Sobbing Kenny Rogers Confronts Grim Death!

The Gambler devastated by diagnosis he was infected by killer virus

COUNTRY crooner Kenny Rogers secretly hid a heartbreaking battle with hepatitis C — long before the killer virus had any treatment or remedy!

Now insiders suspect the ravages of the disease — which can lead to liver failure, cirrhosis and liver cancer — have pushed him toward finally retiring.

GLOBE has learned Kenny, 79, lived with the potentially life-threatening virus for at least TWO decades before he was diagnosed in 1994.

“He must have suspected something was seriously wrong, but he was afraid to learn the truth,” an insider dishes to GLOBE.

“It was eating away at him — and that must have gone on for years.”