Billy Connolly gives health update after cancer and Parkinson’s diagnosis: “I’m a lucky bugger”

Billy Connolly has given an update on his health following his cancer and Parkinson’s diagnosis, calling himself “a lucky bugger”.

The comedian was diagnosed with both health conditions in 2013, and reflected on how it has affected his life in new book The Accidental Artist, which includes drawings that he has created over the past few years.

“I got diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease and prostate cancer the same week,” he writes (via Metro). “I got treated for the cancer, and now I seem to be ok.

“The Parkinson’s just rumbles along, doing its thing. It bothered me for a while, but when I think about it, I suppose I’m lucky I didn’t get something worse because I was a welder.”

He adds: “The diseases they talk about now due to welding weren’t known about when I was in the shipyards. They didn’t know about the hazards of asbestos. And men were always dying in accidents too.

“I was in an accident myself. I fell off the ship into the Clyde, dropped 40 feet into three feet of water and broke my ankle.”

Connolly further reflects: “I’m a lucky bugger. I survived a lot of shit – much of it brought on by myself. I probably shouldn’t have escaped, but I did. Maybe what doesn’t kill you fucks you up for life but at least I’m still here. I’m fishing happily in Florida and I’m not yet dead or broken.”

Recalling one time he bumped into writer Ian La Frenais in London, the comedian revealed: “I was wearing my leather jodhpurs and a leather jacket, pink socks and mules. He said, ‘You know what you look like?’ I said, ‘What?’ He said, ‘A welder who got away with it’.”

Connolly retired from performing in 2020 due to his Parkinson’s and said last year that the disease is “really, really slow-moving, but that doesn’t make it any more pleasant”.

The star also criticised the rise of politically correct comedy, calling it “vomit-inducing”.

“Comedians never used to worry about what was correct to say,” he told The Guardian. “You said it, and you soon found out whether it was correct or not. And then you got on with it. And that was a good enough rule for me.”

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