Billy's tragic battle
‘Awkward’ dinner with ailing comic
SIR Michael Parkinson has revealed that comic Billy Connolly is now struggling to remember his oldest friends.
He said the ailing star appeared not to recognise him in a “sad and awkward” moment recently.
Sir Billy, 75, has stepped back from public life since he revealed he was suffering from Parkinson’s disease five years ago.
But chat show legend Sir Michael said: “The sadness of Billy now is that wonderful brain is dulled. I saw him recently – he’s now living in
America – and it was very sad, because I was presenting him with a prize at an award ceremony.”
Sir Michael, 83, continued: “We had an awkward dinner together because I wasn’t quite sure if he knew who I was or not.
Awful
“But we were walking out after the presentation to go down and have our picture taken and he turned to me and put his hands on my shoulders. He said to me, ‘How long have we known each other?”’
Sir Michael said Billy, a guest on his chat shows many times, was not sure of the “context” of their friendship.
He added: “To know someone as long as I knew and loved Billy, it was an awful thing to contemplate, that that had been taken from him.”
Sir Billy has previously opened up about the diagnosis.
BIG YIN: Billy in heyday He said: “The doctor said to me, ‘You realise this isn’t curable?’ And I thought, ‘What a rotten thing to say to somebody.’
“I always thought he should have said, ‘You realise we are yet to find a cure?’ to put a little light at the end of the tunnel.
“There’s a lot to be said for that.”
The Star Says: Page 6