Over the past few days, rumors have been swirling that the former Back To The Future star Michael J. Fox had passed away. Now, Fox himself is speaking out to put these rumors to rest once and for all.
Fox Shuts Down Death Rumors
“Michael is doing great,” Fox’s rep told TMZ on Wednesday, April 8. “He was at PaleyFest yesterday. He was on stage and was giving interviews.”
A spokesperson for CNN then issued an apology for the network publishing a video titled “Remembering the life of actor Michael J. Fox.”
“The package was published in error; we have removed it from our platforms and send our apologies to Michael J. Fox and his family,” the rep said.
One day before, on Tuesday, Fox showed up at PaleyFest LA hosted at the Dolby Theatre. There, he joined the Apple TV+ series Shrinking for their Season 3 wrap party. Fox, 64, served as a guest star on the series this season.
Fox’s Parkinson’s Battle
Fox has sadly had to take a step back from larger Hollywood stars in recent years due to his health. The former Family Ties star was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease back in 1991 at the age of 29. It wasn’t until 1998 that Fox announced his diagnosis to the world.
The National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke defines Parkinson’s disease as being “a progressive movement disorder of the nervous system,” which ultimately leads “to symptoms that include problems with movement, tremor, stiffness, and impaired balance.”
Fox has been very open about how he dealt with this devastating diagnosis. Indeed, he’s previously said that he initially ran away from it.
“Honestly, my first reaction was, ‘You’ve made a mistake — you’re not aware of who I am,’” Fox said in a 2018 interview.
“I responded by drinking too much,” he admitted. “I drank to obliterate it, to make it go away. [But the abuse] caused tension in my marriage, which had always been good and has been amazing since.”
Fox has been married to his devoted wife Tracy Pollan since 1988. They are parents to four children: a son, Michael, 36, twin daughters Aquinnah Kathleen and Schuyler Frances Fox, both 31, and a 24-year-old daughter, Esmé Annabelle.
Fox Discusses His Future
In October of last year, opened up about his future in a new interview with The Times.
“There’s no timeline, there’s no series of stages that you go through — not in the same way that you would, say, with prostate cancer,” Fox said. “It’s much more mysterious and enigmatic.”
“There are not many people who have had Parkinson’s for 35 years,” he continued. “I’d like to just not wake up one day. That’d be really cool. I don’t want it to be dramatic. I don’t want to trip over furniture, smash my head.”
Despite the debilitating impact of Parkinson’s disease, Fox has still been able to continue working over the years. He did this after a doctor told him that continuing to act might help him fight the symptoms of Parkinson’s.
“It was helpful, to a point,” Fox explained. “And that’s [the point] where I break stuff. It’s absolutely incredible the stuff I broke. In a three-year period, I broke my elbow, I broke my hand, I got a big infection in my hand and I almost lost my finger.”
Thankfully, Fox was able to overcome all of that, and he is still going strong to this day. We could not be happier that there is absolutely no truth to the rumors that Fox has passed away. Please join us in saying a prayer for his health moving forward.
God bless you, Michael J. Fox!