BILLY Connolly has revealed he learned he had both prostate cancer and Parkinson’s disease on the same day.
Billy Connolly and Pamela Stephenson celebrate at Sir David Frost's 70th Birthday party[REX]It was a funny week. On the Monday I got hearing aids, on the Tuesday I got pills for heartburn. And on the Wednesday I got news that I had prostate cancer and Parkinson’s disease.
The 71-year-old comedian was rocked by the double whammy in a phone call at home.
The Scottish star recalled: “It was a funny week. On the Monday I got hearing aids, on the Tuesday I got pills for heartburn.
“And on the Wednesday I got news that I had prostate cancer and Parkinson’s disease.
“They told me, ‘Look we’ve had the result and it’s cancer.’
“And I said, ‘Oh, nobody’s ever said that to me before’.”
“I remember I went to the bedroom to answer the phone.
“My wife Pamela was behind me. I thought she was gonna catch me.
“And she sort of held me, and I went, ‘Oh Jesus...’ But when we went into the living room I went phrrhrht.”
Connolly recalled the moment in an interview for next week’s Radio Times about a new ITV documentary series about death.
He has since been given the all-clear after treatment for his prostate cancer.
And he dismissed suggestions that the drugs he had to take for Parkinson’s had caused on-stage memory loss in Belfast last year.
“That was bull!” he went on. “It makes me so angry. I’ve lost my train of thought all my career. It’s what makes me different from everybody else – ‘Where was I, what was I saying?’ I just ramble off and come back ages later.”
Connolly revealed that he uses notebooks as a memory aid.
He said: “I’ve got a notebook with all the words I tend to forget. It’s the same ones cropping up again and again.
“And I’ve put myself on a strict regime of crossword books. They remind me of everything. I have to train my memory.”
Connolly talks about his own death in the ITV documentary, Billy Connolly’s Big Send Off.
“I don’t think I want a resting place. I want to be scattered to the wind,” he says.
“Actually, I’d like to think we could have the coffin in a hearse, empty. And the real me being buried somewhere by pals, quietly, with a tree on top of me.”
- The first part of Billy Connolly’s Big Send Off airs on May 7 at 9pm on ITV.
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