Michael J. Fox insists ‘I’m still alive’ after death scare blunder

Michael J.

Fox has poked fun at a report that incorrectly claimed that he’d died.

The 64-year-old actor is best known for playing Marty McFly in the Back to the Future film trilogy but was later forced to reduce his acting roles after being diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease aged just 29 in 1991.

In 2000 he founded The Michael J.

Fox Foundation to help fund research for the disease, which has raised over $2.5billion (£1.86billion) since its inception.

On Wednesday, CNN posted an article with the ominous title Remembering the Life of Actor Michael J.

Fox, which immediately sent fans into a frenzy and left many heartbroken about his apparent passing.

However soon after the article was deleted – with the American news organisation admitting its error and telling TMZ in a statement: ‘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 actor’s representatives then confirmed Fox was in fact fine.

The actor then weighed in himself, posting on Threads: ‘How do you react when you turn on the TV and CNN is reporting your death?

Do you…A) switch to MNSBC, or whatever they are calling themselves these days, (B) Pour scolding hot water on your lap, if it hurts your fine, (C) Call your wife, hopefully she’s concerned but reassuring, (D) Relax, they do this once every year, (E) Ask yourself wtf ?

I thought the world was ending, but apparently it’s just me and I’m ok.

Love, Mike.’
A day earlier Fox appeared at the annual TV and media festival PaleyFest, held at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles.

One of the events saw a screening and panel for the Apple TV Plus series Shrinking, lead by showrunner and co-creator Bill Lawrence and co-creator and star Jason Segel, along with cast members including Harrison Ford, Jessica Williams, Michael Urie.

In the series Ford plays Paul Rhoades, a doctor who is secretly dealing with a Parkinson’s disease diagnosis, while Fox guest stars in the third season playing a fellow Parkinson’s patient.

Making a surprise appearance at the event, Fox joined the group on stage, where he was seen hugging his co-star.

Fox’s role in Shrinking marks his first acting role since he retired from his craft in 2020.

That year he detailed his decision to step away from the camera in his memoir, No Time Like the Future: An Optimist Considers Mortality.

‘Not being able to speak reliably is a game-breaker for an actor,’ he wrote, adding that he was also coping with memory loss.

‘There is a time for everything, and my time of putting in a 12-hour workday, and memorising seven pages of dialogue, is best behind me…I enter a second retirement.

That could change, because everything changes.

But if this is the end of my acting career, so be it.’
In 2018 Fox recalled his reaction to first being diagnoses, sharing: ‘Honestly, my first reaction was, “You’ve made a mistake – you’re not aware of who I am.’
‘I responded by drinking too much.

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.’
In an interview with The Sunday Times last year, Fox spoke about the progression of his Parkinson’s and how it now affects his daily life.

‘I don’t walk that much any more.

I can walk but it’s not pretty and it’s a bit dangerous.

So, I just roll that into my life, you know – no pun intended,’ he said.

When asked about living with the disease, he replied: ‘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.

It’s much more mysterious and enigmatic.

‘There are not many people who have had Parkinson’s for 35 years.’ He then added: ‘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 going on to declare how the disease ‘sucks’, he expressed his gratitude that people ‘don’t feel sorry’ for him.

‘They don’t think I’m pathetic.

They see me as – well, I couldn’t tell you how they see me, but I sense that they see me as a positive force.’
However, in 2023 he did admit in an interview with CBS Sunday Morning that he’d ‘been thinking about mortality a bit’ and conceded he was ‘not going to make it to 80’.

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