Actor Michael J. Fox said he wouldn’t have faulted his wife, Tracy Pollan, if she had decided it was too much dealing with him amid his Parkinson’s battle.
The 62-year-old actor discussed his outlook during a CBS Mornings interview that aired on Thursday.
“I love Tracy obviously and she’s an amazing person and has gone through a lot,” Fox said during the interview. “I realize she has a life separate from me having Parkinson’s, from me being Alex Keaton or Marty McFly, she’s a person. I think that’s why it’s gone OK.”
The couple celebrated 35 years of marriage this past July. Fox was diagnosed with Parkinson’s, an incurable, degenerative disease, in 1991 when he was 29.
“She had indicated to me by saying, for better or for worse, in sickness and in health. She was able to get me through it, and go through it with me. And she has for 35 years,” the “Back to the Future” star said of his wife.
“At any time she would have been forgiven to say, ‘I’m just gonna step out,’” the actor said Thursday. “But she didn’t do that.”
Fox, who has since become a fierce advocate for Parkinson’s research through his foundation, described the diagnosis as being very uncertain from the beginning. “We knew the bus was coming and we knew it was going to hit, but we didn’t know how far away it was or how fast it was going,” he said.
The “Spin City” alum admitted to having good days and bad days during his ongoing battle but said he always tries to stay positive. “The positivity is really sincere,” he told CBS co-host Nate Burleson during their conversation. “I really feel it, and it’s genuine. But it’s hard fought and it’s hard won, I should say.”
Fox spoke candidly about his life outlook during an interview in May. “I’m not gonna be 80,” Fox told journalist Jane Pauley at the time, as The Daily Wire previously reported. Though Pauley remarked that his life hasn’t been “squandered,” the actor said he’s been confronting his own mortality more often lately.
“Yeah, it’s, it’s banging on the door,” Fox said. “I’m not gonna lie. It’s gettin’ hard, it’s gettin’ harder. It’s gettin’ tougher. Every day it’s tougher.”