Emmy-nominated actor/producer and comedian Anthony Anderson called into Audacy Pittsburgh’s The Bubba Show to chat all about his Type 2 diabetes diagnosis, his initiative - Get Real About Diabetes, and more.
LISTEN NOW: The Bubba Show with Anthony Anderson
After Bubba shared that he is one of the very fortunate members of his family that does not deal with diabetes, noting “my father, my mother, my brother currently, all have diabetes,” he asked Anthony to speak on his Type 2 diabetes diagnosis and asked him how long ago he was diagnosed.
“Yeah, it's been about 25 years now… I was diagnosed when I was 29,” Anthony shared. “I was the first person in my family diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes. Then my mom was diagnosed, and then my dad. But once my father was diagnosed with diabetes, we realized that he had the disease for more than 20 years.”
He continued, “It was 20- 25 years, undiagnosed. So, if you can imagine, living that long without the knowledge of you having diabetes, and how it would have ravaged your body, that’s what my father went through.” Adding, “it was crazy because once I was diagnosed with it, I looked at the symptoms that I had and it immediately took me back to my childhood. It was like, this is what my dad was going through when I was a teenager.”
“That’s what made me force him to go to the hospital and find out that he had Type 2 diabetes.” Anthony noted, sharing that “unfortunately, after a while we lost our dad from complications of diabetes.”
"That’s what made me want to share my testimony and tell my story,” Anthony added. “That's why I partnered with Novo Nordisk, and we came up with this campaign called Get Real About Diabetes.” A website “where people can go and get the information that they need about this disease.”
Throughout the conversation, Anthony also talked about Fox’s The Real Full Monty, taking his Momma Doris on a six week Europe trip, and more. To catch it all, listen to the entire interview above.