Michael J. Fox Accepts TIME100 Impact Award With Moving Speech on Parkinson’s Experience

TIME

Actor and activist Michael J. Fox accepted the second annual TIME100 Impact Award—which recognizes a global trailblazer who is pushing boundaries in their industry—at the 2024 TIME100 Gala at New York City’s Jazz at Lincoln Center on Thursday.

Transcript

00:00 [ Applause ]

00:06 >> Ladies and gentlemen, the great Michael J. Fox.

00:10 [ Applause ]

00:16 >> I appreciate it.

00:17 Thank you.

00:17 It's an honor to be here and truly humbling

00:19 to accept this recognition.

00:21 I just want to thank Gal Willey and Ryan.

00:24 They're great friends of mine.

00:25 They clearly had important relationships with their fathers

00:29 who both had Parkinson's and both Parkinson's patients.

00:32 And my dad was according to me too.

00:36 And coincidentally his birthday is Saturday.

00:38 He would be 95.

00:41 He didn't make it.

00:46 He did 95.

00:47 He made it to 61.

00:49 I'm 62 so I had that going for me.

00:52 In fact, he passed away a year before I was diagnosed.

00:56 He was a funny, smart guy.

00:59 Though he never even came close to finishing high school,

01:01 he loved words, he loved puzzles.

01:03 He could recite dozens of poems off the top of his head.

01:06 And it's one of his favorites.

01:09 Yesterday upon the stair, I met a man who wasn't there.

01:13 He wasn't there again today.

01:15 I wish I wish he'd go away.

01:17 How is this relevant?

01:18 It turns out it's the perfect metaphor

01:20 for young onset Parkinson's.

01:22 I was climbing a golden staircase,

01:24 minding my own business and suddenly I was blocked

01:26 by someone neither I nor anyone else could see.

01:30 Time passed and no change.

01:33 No one could see it but I knew it was there.

01:36 And it was blocking me from moving forward

01:38 and pushing me backward.

01:40 And I was doing a lot of hiding.

01:43 And the one thing that wasn't going

01:44 to work though was wishing it away.

01:46 As time passed, I was lucky enough to gain the support

01:48 of hundreds of thousands, eventually millions of others

01:51 who wanted to climb those stairs to their own futures

01:54 as badly as I did mine.

01:56 It is those people, doctors, scientists, researchers

01:59 and others, most impressively patients and their families

02:02 and friends who showed up for themselves and others.

02:05 We threw a $2 billion bag around the little monster

02:08 on the stairs and while we have a better sense

02:10 of what we are dealing with, recent breakthroughs

02:12 and biomarkers are an example of this.

02:15 We now know we are dealing with not just a clinical approach

02:18 to Parkinson's disease but truly biological understanding

02:21 of its symptoms, its progressives,

02:24 clues towards finding a cure sooner

02:26 than we ever would have hoped for.

02:28 So thank you and thanks to our amazing staff,

02:30 our truly committed board of directors, my fellow patients

02:34 and their families and in my case that would be Tracy

02:38 and our four adult kids.

02:41 Our adult kids, that's amazing.

02:44 And my dad.

02:46 He never said, he graduated from the School of Hard Knocks.

02:50 He didn't get anywhere near high school.

02:53 He said he had a master's from the University of adversity.

02:58 I didn't finish high school either and I guess

03:00 that makes me a legacy at the University of adversity.

03:04 And since every class of the University

03:06 of adversity is an AP philosophy course,

03:11 I'll close with a quote from Camus.

03:13 In midst of winter, I found there was

03:15 within me an invincible summer.

03:18 Happy birthday, dad.

03:20 Give mom a hug for me.

03:21 [ Applause ]

03:24 [ Music ]

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