Actor Danny Glover, 79, has revealed a heartbreaking diagnosis he received “not long after” winning his honorary Oscar in 2022.
In a pre-taped segment on the Today show, Glover invited NBC’s Lester Holt into his San Francisco home to discuss his Alzheimer’s disease diagnosis.
Holt asked Glover how he’s coping. “I can live with it, in a sense,” responded the Lethal Weapon actor.
“I’m sure as it advances, things are going to be different and changing,” he added.
Glover also spoke with People about his diagnosis, saying, “I’m still not accepting in my mind all parts of it. 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.”
Glover will turn 80 on July 22. He hasn’t made any major movies in the past few years but he has a few new projects in the works, including a biopic of Dionne Warwick, called Dionne, in which he plays the legendary singer’s brother, Mancel.
His daughter, Mandisa, said that her father wanted to share his diagnosis, which he formally received in 2023, because it is “really important” for him to have “control of his own narrative, of his own life story.”
“That’s really important. 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,’” she said.
A longtime activist, Glover said he credits his parents for instilling him with a passion for social justice. He was awarded the Oscars’ Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award in 2022 for his contributions to humanitarian causes.
The award-winning actor said he feels like it is his duty to teach young people and help them understand their responsibilities.
“Justice is our collective responsibility,” he told Today. “One thing I learned from my parents most of my life is the capacity of people to change through their own. They become the architect of their change.”
