Michael J. Fox Gives Moving Speech While Accepting Emmys Humanitarian Award

"Accepting Parkinson's didn't mean I had to surrender to it," actor says

The Emmys honored Michael J. Fox on Monday night with the Bob Hope Humanitarian Award, recognizing his work in bringing attention to Parkinson’s disease with his Michael J. Fox Foundation. Julianna Margulies, who starred alongside Fox on The Good Wife, presented him with the award.

After thanking Margulies and the Television Academy for the honor, Fox spoke to the legacy of Bob Hope. “My parents were born during the Great Depression and came of age during World War II,” he said. “To them, Bob was more than an entertainer, he was a selfless champion of soldiers and military families like mine for decades. Christmases, Thanksgivings, and other holidays where he could have been celebrating with his family, he was showing up for the troops in Berlin, Saigon, and the Middle East with a turkey leg and a golf club.”

Fox said he would later learn from Hope’s example, praising how Hope would bring joy to people during tough times. “Initially, I kept my Parkinson’s diagnosis a secret,” Fox said. “I worried that it would affect my work and relationships with audiences. Would they laugh if they knew I was sick?” But ultimately, he found that the world accepted him, calling their support “uplifting.” He thanked the crowd for standing up for him.

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“I understood that accepting Parkinson’s didn’t mean I had to surrender to it,” he said. “It just meant doing everything I could for everyone living with this disease.” That’s when he started advocating for people and raising money to find a cure. “I’m proud of the progress we’ve made,” he said. When he finished, the crowd gave him a standing ovation as he left the stage in his wheelchair.

The 78th Emmy Awards was hosted by Mariska Hargitay. Fox had been nominated multiple times for Emmys during the course of his career and previously won five awards. He received his first in 1986 for playing Alex P. Keaton on the sitcom, Family Ties, and got his most recent in 2009 for Rescue Me.