Celebrities Who Were Diagnosed with Alzheimer’s Disease
Celebrities Who Were Diagnosed with Alzheimer’s Disease
Niya DoyleSun, July 19, 2026 at 11:00 AM UTC
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Credit: Dia Dipasupil/Getty Images
Alzheimer’s disease is a neurodegenerative disease and the most common type of dementia. According to the Alzheimer’s Association, more than seven million Americans are living with Alzheimer’s, and the number is expected to rise to 13 million by 2050.
One in three older American adults die with Alzheimer’s or another form of dementia. The lifetime risk of an Alzheimer’s diagnosis for an American 45-year-old is 1 in 5 for women and 1 in 10 for men.
Symptoms of the disease include memory loss that disrupts daily life, trouble handling money or paying bills, mood and personality changes, as well as decreased judgement skills. There is no cure, though there are some treatment options; Alzheimer’s patients have an average life expectancy of 11 years from diagnosis, according to the Mayo Clinic.
Because it’s a very difficult diagnosis, these celebrities who have received it have spoken out about their condition to raise awareness and hopefully work towards a cure. Learn who received an Alzheimer’s diagnosis and what they said about it.
Key Takeaways
Alzheimer’s disease affects over 7 million Americans and is expected to impact 13 million by 2050
Celebrities including Danny Glover and Sully Sullenberger have used their experiences to raise awareness and reduce stigma
Early diagnosis and advocacy efforts, like Glen Campbell’s documentary, highlight the importance of education and support
01 of 09
Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger
Credit: Michael Loccisano/Getty
Age of diagnosis: 75
“Miracle on the Hudson” pilot Captain Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger III revealed that he’s in the early stages of Alzheimer’s in a Facebook post that he also shared with PEOPLE on July 14. In it, he detailed the memory loss he had been experiencing, and shared that he wanted to go public with the diagnosis to raise awareness and fight the disease alongside others.
Sullenberger is best known for saving the lives of 155 passengers on board US Airways Flight 1549 along with co-pilot Jeffrey Skiles by making an emergency landing on the Hudson River near Manhattan. The plane experienced a double engine failure shortly after takeoff due to a bird strike.
Sullenberger was named second in TIME’s “Top 100 Most Influential Heroes and Icons of 2009” and depicted by Tom Hanks in the 2016 biographical film Sully directed by Clint Eastwood.
Wife Lorrie added to PEOPLE, “Just as he was the same steady person before and after Flight 1549, he is the same steady person now, before and after this diagnosis. That strength and steadiness is guiding us as a family. We’re supporting him on this journey that we now walk with so many other families. Though the future is uncertain, we continue to live our lives, have hope, and find joy in the everyday.”
02 of 09
Danny Glover
Credit: Dia Dipasupil/Getty Images
Age of diagnosis: 77
Danny Glover, 79, has been living with the disease since 2023, but only went public with his diagnosis since July of this year. The Color Purple actor talked about his diagnosis in a recent exclusive PEOPLE interview.
“I’m still not accepting in my mind all parts of it,” said Glover in the interview. “There are the moments that you keep remembering that validate the fact that you can remember stuff. And there are moments I’ll never forget.”
For him, it helps to remember that he’s part of a larger group, “in some sense acknowledging that it’s happening to you and at the same time that there are millions of people suffering from it.”
03 of 09
Joanne Woodward
Credit: Larry Busacca/Getty
Age of diagnosis: 77
The award-winning The Three Faces of Eve actress and widow of Paul Newman was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in 2007 and lives a quiet life with family in Connecticut. She is 96.
Woodward’s mother also suffered from Alzheimer’s, and Woodward served as her caretaker. In the 1985 TV film Do You Remember Love, Woodward portrays a college professor who struggles to come to terms with her own diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease.
04 of 09
Gene Wilder
Credit: Rick Diamond
Age of diagnosis: 80
Gene Wilder, beloved for his role in the 1971 film Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, passed away from complications of the disease in 2016 at the age of 83.
Wilder kept his diagnosis private from the public, in hopes of not disappointing his. young fans.
“We would go out and kids would light up when they saw him,” Jordan Walker-Pearlman, Wilder’s nephew, told PEOPLE in 2016 . “He didn’t want to bear any responsibility for taking away that light or the smiles. He knew there would be a parent, with the best of intentions, who would whisper something to their spouse and cause that child to feel less joy than they did when they first saw him.”
“The diagnosis was slow in coming but the symptoms were not,” continued Walker-Pearlman. Despite that, he “always recognized the people he loved and never changed his core personality. In that sense we were lucky.”
Wilder passed peacefully surrounded by family as one of his favorite Ella Fitzgerald songs played.
05 of 09
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Glen Campbell
Credit: John Shearer/WireImage
Age of diagnosis: 74
The “Rhinestone Cowboy” singer was diagnosed in 2011 and passed away at age 81. Before his death, Glen Campbell advocated endlessly for raising awareness of the disease in his 2014 documentary Glenn Campbell...I’ll Be Mewhich chronicled his time living with the disease and his 2012 farewell tour.
In 2014, his family established the I’ll Be Me Alzheimer’s Fund to fund Alzheimer’s Disease research and raise awareness.
“Glen’s battle with Alzheimer’s was a long difficult journey, one that too many families are all too familiar with. But it was also a journey filled with love, resilience, and determination to make a difference,” Campbell’s wife, Kim, shared in a 2023 blog post.
06 of 09
Rita Hayworth
Credit: Silver Screen Collection/Getty
Age of diagnosis: 60 or 61
Rita Hayworth, born as Margarita Carmen Cansino, is best known for her femme fatale performance in the 1946 film noir classic Gilda. Her fame as a pin up girl during World War II made her one of the most well-known faces of Hollywood’s golden age.
Though the disease was first discovered in 1906 by German physician Dr. Alois Alzheimer, it wasn’t widely understood until the mid-‘80s, leading Hayworth to several misdiagnoses before being told she had Alzheimer’s 1981.
Hayworth died from the disease in 1987 at age 68.
“Denial is a world problem, one that prevents people from talking about the disease,” Princess Yasmin Aga Khan, Hayworth’s youngest daughter, told the Alzheimer’s Association.
“My mother’s public experience might have helped reduce stigma a bit, but there’s still so much more work to be done,” she said.
07 of 09
Sidney Poitier
Credit: Archive Photos/Getty
Age of diagnosis: Unknown
Sidney Poitier became the first Black man to win an Oscar in 1964 for his performance in the 1963 film Lillies of the Field, and continued on to a groundbreaking career that included a Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Obama in 2009, and being named an honorary Knight Commander by Queen Elizabeth II in 1974.
In 2022, he passed away in his Beverly Hills home, aged 94. While his diagnosis was never made public, his death certificate found that he had the disease along with heart failure and prostate cancer.
08 of 09
Tony Bennett
Credit: Dave Kotinsky/Getty
Age of diagnosis: 89
The critically acclaimed jazz singer’s family revealed his diagnosis to the public in a 2021 AARP: The Magazine profile, at which point Bennett had been living with the disease for five years.
Despite his diagnosis, the star continued to sing and recorded his second collaborative album with Lady Gaga Love For Sale, and TV special One Last Time: An Evening with Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga in 2021.
The Grammy Hall of Famer passed away from the disease at age 96 in 2023. His neurologist, Dr. Gayarti Devi, told PEOPLE that music was incredibly beneficial for the singer.
“It kept him on his toes and also stimulated his brain in a significant way,” Dr. Devi said. “He is doing so many things, at 94, that many people without dementia cannot do. He really is the symbol of hope for someone with a cognitive disorder.”
09 of 09
Ronald Reagan
Credit: Wally McNamee/CORBIS/Corbis via Getty
Age of diagnosis: 83
In 1994, the former president announced his Alzheimer’s diagnosis to the world in a handwritten letter.
The news was devastating to his family, but Patti Davis, Reagan’s third daughter, looked for a silver lining. In her book about Alzheimer’s caregivers, Floating Through The Deep End, she wrote her father’s diagnosis helped her with her own struggles and drew her closer to her mother.
“As much as Alzheimer’s, and the person who has it, comes to dominate your life, it also presents you with an opportunity to free yourself from the domination of the past,” Davis wrote. “The dynamics that were once in place don’t need to define the future. I’d spent so many decades longing for what I was never going to get from my parents. Alzheimer’s made me realize that I had to be the one to change.”
“Alzheimer’s moves a person back through time,” she continued. “If you’re willing to follow them down that road, you learn things you might never have learned otherwise.”
on People
Source: “AOL Entertainment”
