“He’s been taking about 20 pills a day for his cancer,” said one inmate.

“He talks about it all the time. He’s not doing very well.”

There’s been much speculation as to why Madoff took the entire fall for the scheme — and rumors of his suffering from pancreatic cancer surfaced many months before he arrived at the Butner, NC, complex in June…

Madoff is also making new friends at the prison complex through another unlikely clique — the homosexual posse, although the relationships are purely platonic, according to the sources.

“In prison, you stick to your own kind, but he’s doing the exact opposite by hanging with the Indians and [homosexuals] — so who is going to have his back?” wondered one jailbird.