Danny Glover has disclosed that he has been living with Alzheimer’s disease for several years.

The 79-year-old shared the news in an interview on The Today Show, saying he was diagnosed “not long” after receiving an honorary Oscar in 2022.

Speaking about the illness, Glover said, “I could live with it, in a sense. I’m sure as it advances, things are going to be different and changing,” and said his movements, speech and memory have slowed.

He said the support around him has helped him cope, explaining that his family “have got my back”.

His daughter, Mandisa, said it was “really important” that he address the diagnosis in his own way.

“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 said.

Glover also discussed the diagnosis with People, saying he was “still not accepting in my mind all parts of it”.

“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,” he said.

Even so, he made clear he does not see the diagnosis as the end. “I don’t feel like it’s the end of my life. There’s work to do. I still have my daughter, I have friends. I want to just say, your life continues.”

Reflecting on coming to terms with the condition he learned about three years ago, Glover said it was “in some sense acknowledging that it’s happening to you and at the same time that there are millions of people suffering from it”.

Across a career spanning nearly 40 years, Glover has built more than 170 film and television credits.

He made his film debut in Escape From Alcatraz in 1979, then rose to prominence in the 1980s as Roger Murtaugh opposite Mel Gibson’s Martin Riggs in the Lethal Weapon films. He later appeared in Places In The Heart, The Colour Purple, and Predator 2.

He has been awarded five Emmys and four Grammys.

Outside acting, Glover served as a goodwill ambassador for the United Nations Development Programme from 1998-2004, taking part in global campaigns focused on poverty, disease and combating HIV/Aids across Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean.

In 2004, he was also appointed a goodwill ambassador for Unicef.