Michael J. Fox’s heartbreaking interview: Parkinson’s battle is ‘getting harder’

Hollywood star Michael J. Fox has confronted his mortality and said his Parkinson’s battle is “getting harder”.

Michael J. Fox revealed his Parkinson's battle is getting harder every day.

Michael J. Fox is coming to terms with how difficult his more than 30-year battle with Parkinson’s disease has become.

“I’m not gonna be 80,” the Back to the Future star, 61, said in a preview for an upcoming episode of American current affairs program CBS Sunday Morning, reported Page Six.

Journalist Jane Pauley tells Fox in the clip that he has “not squandered” but that his illness will one day “make the call” as to when it’s his time to go.

“Yeah, it’s, it’s banging on the door,” the Family Ties actor said in response.

“I’m not gonna lie. It’s gettin’ hard, it’s gettin’ harder. It’s gettin’ tougher. Every day it’s tougher.”

Fox then explains that he had surgery to remove a benign tumour on his spine, but the procedure “messed up” his walking and so he started to “break” other parts of his body, including his arm, elbow, face and hand.

Michael J. Fox was diagnosed with Parkinson’s at the age of 29. Picture: Jason Kempin/Getty Images

He adds that the “big killer” of Parkinson’s disease is “falling” and can also be “aspirating food and getting pneumonia,” noting it is “all these subtle ways that gets you.”

“You don’t die from Parkinson’s. You die with Parkinson’s,” Fox concluded. “So – so I’ve been – I’ve been thinking about the mortality of it.”

Fox was diagnosed with the brain disorder at the young age of 29. He has since become a leading advocate for research for the condition, even launching the Michael J. Fox Foundation in 2000 to help educate the public and fund studies.

Two years ago, the Fox shared that he does not fear death.

“I’m really blunt with people about cures. When they ask me if I will be relieved of Parkinson’s in my lifetime, I say, ‘I’m 60 years old, and science is hard. So, no,’” Fox said in an AARP magazine profile in December 2021.

“I am genuinely a happy guy. I don’t have a morbid thought in my head — I don’t fear death. At all.”

This article originally appeared on Page Six and was republished with permission.