Michael J Fox recalls 'nightmare' of sitting next to Princess Diana at Back to the Future premiere
19 November 2020, 10:44 | Updated: 19 November 2020, 11:10
Michael J. Fox Watched Back to the Future with Princess Diana
Michael J Fox has looked back on the night he met Princess Diana and was joked that he was essentially "on a date" with her back in 1985.
Actor Michael J Fox was appearing on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon on Wednesday (November 18), to promote his new book No Time Like the Future: An Optimist Considers Mortality.
While chatting about the revealing book, he recalled the world premiere of Back to the Future, which he described as a "nightmare" due to the pact he was sat down next to Princess Diana, aka the most famous person on the planet.
“She was sitting next to me,” Michael said. “The lights go down and the movie starts and I realize I am one fake yawn and an arm stretch away from being on a date with her, which is hilarious.”
He said that while sitting next to the princess was amazing, it also ruined the movie experience for him.
Read more: What was Princess Diana's favourite music? Duran Duran, George Michael and more
“The movie started and also I had to go pee,” he said. “So for the rest of the movie, I'm sitting there, like, dying.
"I can't say anything to her and I can't walk away from her because I can't turn my back on her. So it was just agony it could have been the greatest night of my life but it was just a nightmare. A pee-holding nightmare.”
Michael recently opened up about having to retire from acting due to his Parkinson's disease condition.
The 59-year-old Back to the Future star has said that he doesn't have the short term memorisation skills needed to learn his lines for potential roles.Michael was diagnosed with Parkinson's, a degenerative disorder of the central nervous system, back in 1991.
Michael J. Fox Watched Back to the Future with Princess Diana
He first went public with his condition in 1998 but still continued acting. He starred in the hit sitcom Spin City from 1996 to 2001, and in The Good Wife from 2010 to 2016.
However, he has now said that he will probably no longer act as he struggles with short term memory.
"My short-term memory is shot," he told People. "I always had a real proficiency for lines and memorisation.
"And I had some extreme situations where the last couple of jobs I did were actually really word-heavy parts. I struggled during both of them."
