Fidel Castro speaks in Venezuelan TV interview

Audio of the interview, which took place in Cuba, was broadcast late Friday along with photos of the 85-year-old Castro.

Castro seemed upbeat as he responded to rumors that he might be ill or near death saying, "You don't say! Well, they haven't told me anything."

He has not appeared in public since a Communist Party summit in April, when he seemed unsteady and unusually frail. He has all but stopped writing his trademark opinion pieces. The silence had led to a fresh round of speculation from Miami, propagated on exile radio and television stations and through social media sites such as Twitter.

The interview with Venezuelan talk show host Mario Silva was recorded Tuesday in the Cuban capital, Havana. Silva first showed photos of the interview, without audio, Wednesday night on his late-night program "La Hojilla," or "The Razor."