Michael J. Fox has reflected on the emotional toll of publicly revealing his Parkinson's disease diagnosis, admitting the decision was especially difficult for his wife, Tracy Pollan, who endured the intense public scrutiny alongside him.
While conversing with The Hollywood Reporter, the Teen Wolf star opened about the impact on wife Tracy Pollan when he went public with his diagnosis.
Fox shared, “It was hell on Tracy, it was really hard on her — and it still is because it’s always changing,” before adding, “But I said to her, ‘I have to go all the way here. No half measures.’”
“I started to understand what it was like for these people who didn’t have the options or the choices I had, didn’t have the connections and the reason to be optimistic,” the Back to the Future actor continued in the interview, published on Wednesday, July 22.
He mentioned, “I needed to normalize it and just be that all the time. I said, ‘I have to not hide this. F--- vanity.’”
“I thought, ‘Well, f--- you! I have Parkinson’s and you’re celebrating,’ ” Fox told the outlet, later adding, “I got it. People back then would never in a million years tell you they had Parkinson’s.”
Michael J. Fox Foundation
“There isn’t any other Parkinson’s patient who’s letting people see their lives 35 years into a Parkinson’s diagnosis,” Deborah W. Brooks, Fox’s longtime business partner and CEO of the Michael J. Fox Foundation, said.
Brooks noted, “That is such an active choice of generosity. It’s not an ego thing. It is a willingness to just be.”
Fox was diagnosed with early-onset Parkinson's disease at 29 in 1991.
He went public with the diagnosis in 1998 and later founded the Michael J. Fox Foundation, which has invested more than $3 billion in Parkinson's research.
After retiring during the COVID pandemic, Fox returned to acting in Shrinking, playing a Parkinson's patient opposite Harrison Ford.
The role earned him an Emmy nomination.
