After silently fighting Charcot-Marie Tooth disease for more than a decade, country music star Alan Jackson finally opened up in 2021, sharing that he’s struggling with the disease, which “is getting more and more obvious.”
And recently, he offered an update on his condition and revealed the future of performing live to his beloved fans.
“I have this neuropathy and neurological disease,” Jackson shared about the illness he’s been battling 10 years. “It’s genetic that I inherited from my daddy…There’s no cure for it, but it’s been affecting me for years.”
“It’s not going to kill me. It’s not deadly,” Added the “Good Times” singer. Offering fans a point of reference, he then said, “But it’s related [to] muscular dystrophy and Parkinson’s disease.”
John Hopkins Medicine describes CMT as “an inherited disorder that affects the nerves supplying the feet, legs, hands, and arms. It is caused by gene defects that are nearly always inherited from a person’s parents.”
The singer of “Chattahoochie” explains that both his grandmother, and older sister also have CMT.
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“It’s getting more and more obvious. And I know I’m stumbling around on stage,” said the Georgia born singer. “And now I’m having a little trouble balancing, even in front of the microphone, and so I just feel very uncomfortable.”
His greatest champion
Through his career, the Country Music Hall of Fame member has had the support of his wife, high school sweetheart, Denise Jackson.
The couple wed in 1979 and have three daughters, Mattie (born in 1990), Ali (born in 1993) and Dani (born in 1997).
After a brief separation in 1998, the two have been inseparable, and Denise continues to be his biggest champion.
In fact, when Denise was working as a flight attendant, she met the legendary late Glen Campbell, who she coerced into meeting her husband, an aspiring musician working to make ends meet with a job in the mailroom at the Nashville Network.
In 2017, following the tragic death of the “Rhinestone Cowboy” singer, Jackson said, “I will always feel like I owe Glen a lot of gratitude – he was my first contact in Nashville when my wife, Denise, was a flight attendant, met him at the airport.” He continues, “He gave her his business card for his publishing company. This connection lead me down the path that brought me to where I am today.”
Seated with her husband at the interview with Bush Hager on Today, Denise said of her husband, “When I’m down, he lifts me up. When he’s down, I try to lift him up.” She continued, “The happy side of that is we’ve had a fairy tale life.”
