Billy: I’m unsteady & my hearing is going

Parkinson’s is progressing but comic is ‘quite happy’

SIR Billy Connolly has opened up about the day to day reality of living with Parkinson’s disease.

The comedian, 76, who was diagnosed with the incurable condition in 2013, said he was now walking “unsteadily” and his “hearing is going” – and revealed he has recently started “drooling”.

But yesterday he reassured fans he was “quite happy taking my medicine and getting along with it”.

The funnyman, who announced his retirement from live shows last year, told Chris Evans, on Virgin Radio’s breakfast show: “I’ve stopped performing because of my Parkinson’s disease and I’ve stopped touring. I may perform at some other point but I have no plans to.”

Sir Billy, famed for his energetic stage shows during a six-decade career, said of the disease: “It would affect my performance. I don’t think the way I used to. I don’t think at the speed I used to.

“I don’t really know if the performance bit has gone because I have to get into the performance mode to see that.” Symptoms of Parkinson’s disease include decreased mobility, a tremor and difficulty speaking.

The comic and TV presenter, known affectionately as the Big Yin, also admitted: “I’ve started to drool, which is a new one on me.

“This disease, it gives you a new thing every now and again that you have to deal with, and drooling is my latest.

“I walk unsteadily and my hearing is going and it’s bizarre that bits of me are falling off – but it’s interesting.”

Father-of-five Sir Billy, who is cared for by his second wife, the psychologist and actress Pamela Stephenson, 69, added: “Steadily more symptoms come and it’s incurable.

“As a matter of fact I had a Russian doctor in New York who said, ‘You realise this is an incurable disease?’

“And I said, ‘Stop calling it an incurable disease, say we have yet to find the cure. Give the guy a light in the tunnel’.”

NO CURE Comedian Billy was diagnosed in 2013