Michael J Fox recently made a ton of headlines when he appeared on The Howard Stern Show. Not only did he talk about his own battles with alcoholism, he also addressed Rush Limbaugh’s Parkinson’s’ comments. Fox called the fired conservative radio host a bully.
Howard and Michael have known each other for quite some time, but this was Fox’s most revealing interview to date. Howard started right out of the gates, by talking about when Fox spoke to Congress about stem cell research. As Fox explains, he wanted to speak while suffering from the disease:
“I didn’t take the medication because I wanted to see the effect that it had on people.”
Howard remembered the incident well and brought up conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh, who mocked Michael J Fox on his show. Limbaugh even made a video of himself shaking, imitating Fox’s disease. Howard was not a fan of Limbaugh’s joke, telling Fox:
“The guy I get pissed off at was Rush Limbaugh. I got so angry...George Bush was President and there was all this nonsense going on. I said to myself, ‘If this guy’s daughter had Parkinson’s or some other horrible disease disease, he’d f---ing want stem cell research. But Limbaugh went on the air and he blasted you...he said you were putting on your Parkinson's. You’re a classy guy...you acted like it didn’t bother you but I bet it did.”
Fox is classy, and responded thusly:
“Well, he was just being a bully. When you think about it...if he had been smart about it or entertaining about it, I would have laughed...if there had been some sense of humor about it. The worse part of it was, come after me all you want, but don’t get on camera and shake. That’s someone’s mother you’re making fun of, that’s not me. I just think he’s a bully and I ignore him.”
Michael also talked about what it was like when he first discovered that he had Parkinson’s. The actor took the news hard and started drinking heavily, as he revealed to the host:
"My first reaction to it was to start drinking heavily. I used to drink to party, but then I was drinking alone...Every day...It was about a year of a knife fight in a closet, where I just didn't have my tools to deal with it. But then after that I went to therapy, and it all started to get really clear to me."
