Danny Glover is choosing to tell his own story before anyone else tries to tell it for him.
The 79-year-old actor, producer, and longtime activist revealed in a TODAY exclusive with Lester Holt that he has been living with Alzheimer’s disease for several years. The conversation, which aired July 1, offered a personal look at how the “Lethal Weapon” and “The Color Purple” star is navigating his health with the help of the family and community that have always been central to his life.
“I’m sure as it advances, things are going to be different and changing,” Glover said.
When asked whether his family has his back, Danny Glover did not hesitate.
“Absolutely,” he said. “They’ve got my back.”
That support is the heart of the story. While celebrity health announcements often turn into headlines about decline, Glover and his family appear focused on something deeper: agency. His daughter, Mandisa, made it clear that speaking publicly is not about pity. It is about allowing her father to remain the author of his own life while he can still speak directly to the world.
“I think it’s really important for him to have control of his own narrative, of his own life story,” Mandisa told Holt. “That’s really important. And the time is now. What better time but now for him to speak for himself?
“It’s important because people ask questions sometimes, and I don’t want to be a dishonest person and say, ‘Oh, yeah, everything is all right. It’s all great,’” she added.
According to the Alzheimer’s Association, more than 7 million Americans are living with Alzheimer’s, including an estimated 7.4 million people age 65 and older in 2026. The organization also reports that older Black Americans are about twice as likely as older white Americans to have Alzheimer’s or another form of dementia, making Danny Glover’s disclosure especially significant for a community where silence, stigma, limited access to care, and late detection can all shape outcomes.
Glover’s condition has affected his movement, speech, and memory, but he remains present in his native San Francisco, attending events and staying connected to the people around him. When asked about his illness, he offered a measured response.
“I could live with it, in a sense,” Glover said.
The Alzheimer’s Association has emphasized that brain health is not something people should only think about after symptoms appear. Its guidance points to everyday habits such as physical activity, managing blood pressure, sleeping well, staying socially connected, and keeping the mind engaged as ways to support cognitive health. The CDC also highlights risk reduction steps including physical activity, diabetes management, blood pressure control, and addressing hearing loss.
For Danny Glover, memory is not just personal. It is part of the work. His career started long before Hollywood made him a household name, beginning at San Francisco State, where playwright Amiri Baraka helped push him toward the stage.
“He came and he said, ‘Some of you so-called revolutionaries come out and do plays,’” Glover said. “I had never been onstage before.”
That moment opened a path that would eventually take him from theater to some of the most recognizable films of the 1980s and 1990s. Glover became widely known as Detective Roger Murtaugh in the “Lethal Weapon” franchise opposite Mel Gibson, including one scene from “Lethal Weapon 2” that became so iconic fans brought toilets to events for him to sign.
“It’s events where somebody would bring their toilet up, and I would sign it,” Glover said.
Still, Danny Glover’s legacy has never been limited to one franchise. He built a body of work that includes “Places in the Heart,” “The Color Purple,” “Beloved,” “Dreamgirls,” and “The Last Black Man in San Francisco.” The Academy noted his career across film and his work as a lifelong community activist when announcing he would receive the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award, an Oscar statuette given to a film industry figure whose humanitarian work brings credit to the industry.
Glover has said “Places in the Heart” carries a special emotional weight because of a painful loss in his own family.
“It’s for my mother,” he said. “My mother, on the same day that I was told I was going to play the role, she had an automobile accident.”
His mother, Carrie, and father, James, helped shape the political and moral foundation that has followed him throughout his public life.
“The one thing about my parents was their activism,” Glover said. “A sense of being and belonging and making the contribution. When I saw the Montgomery bus boycott (in 1955-56), I knew I wanted to be like those people. I wanted to be in that moment and part of the role.”
That sense of responsibility became a throughline. Danny Glover became a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador in 2004, with advocacy focused on economic justice, health care, education, and vulnerable children. He was also presented with the Audrey Hepburn Humanitarian Award in 2013 for decades of advocacy on behalf of children.
“We have challenges in the world,” Glover said on TODAY. “I think art becomes a reframe, a way of looking at that, you know?”
Even as travel has become harder due to his condition, Glover said he still speaks with young people about the importance of being involved in their communities.
“Justice is our collective responsibility,” he said. “One thing I learned from my parents most of my life is the capacity of people to change through their own. They become the architect of their change.”
That line lands differently now. Danny Glover has spent decades fighting for other people to be seen, heard, and treated with dignity. Now, his family is helping protect those same values around him. His younger brother, Martin Glover, who has worked with him throughout his career, said the support is now being returned.
“He took me under his wing, and I love him to death,” Martin said on TODAY. “And I’m here to help him now.
“It’s my turn. … We talk, and we share times about our parents, our mothers and our family. So it’s all about family.”
In a separate interview with PEOPLE, Glover’s family shared that his daughter Mandisa began noticing memory changes around 2022 and that he received his diagnosis in 2023. Glover, who turns 80 on July 22, said he is still processing the full reality of the disease, but he also made it clear that he does not view his life as over.
That is the part worth holding on to. Danny Glover’s announcement is not just about what Alzheimer’s can take. It is also about what truth, family, care, and community can preserve.
For a man whose work has always connected art to justice, this chapter is another act of service. By speaking openly, Glover is challenging stigma, reminding families to pay attention to memory changes, and putting Black brain health in a conversation that too often comes too late.
