Danny Glover has revealed that he has been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease.
The actor, 79, who is best known for his roles in Lethal Weapon and The Color Purple, publicly announced his battle with the condition during an appearance on The Today Show on Wednesday.
Glover revealed he had been diagnosed ‘not long’ after he received an honorary Oscar in 2022.
Speaking on the show, he explained: ‘I can live with it in a sense. I’m sure as it advances, different things will be different and changing.’
Glover’s daughter Mandisa, who appeared in a pre-taped segment, also added that it is ‘really important’ for her father to speak on his own terms.
She said: ‘And the time is now. What better time but now for him to speak for himself? It’s important because people ask questions sometimes, and I don’t want to be a dishonest person and say, ‘Oh, yeah, everything is all right. It’s all great”.’
Glover also spoke about how he is ‘still not accepting in my mind all parts of it’.
Talking to People, he explained: ‘There are the moments that you keep remembering that validate the fact that you can remember stuff. And there are moments I’ll never forget.’
Alzheimer’s disease is a progressive, degenerative disease of the brain where the build-up of abnormal proteins causes nerve cells to die.
This process causes short-term memory loss, disorientation and behavioural changes before progressing into severe memory loss before eventually losing the ability to walk.
The actor said that coming to terms with his diagnosis in 2023 saw him acknowledge ‘that it’s happening to you and at the same time that there are millions of people suffering from it’.