Billy Crystal has opened up about his deteriorating memory ahead of reuniting with Meg Ryan for a commercial.
The When Harry Met Sally star, 76, made various quips about his worsening memory when he accepted his Lifetime Achievement Award at the 27th annual Critics Choice Awards back in 2022.
The actor had audiences erupting in laughter as he said: “Tomorrow is my birthday, and I’m going to be 74 years old, and as Jimmy [Kimmel] mentioned, I’m about to open in a Broadway musical.
“I can’t remember when I worked harder or had more fun on a project, and I’m serious. I’ll be 74 tomorrow, I actually just can’t remember.”
He continued to quip: “This is the lifetime achievement award, which is a little scary when they say they want to give it to you. So, I called my doctors and I said, ‘Do they know something that I don’t?’
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Billy Crystal joked about his deteriorating memory (Image: Getty)
“I’ve been so blessed to work with such amazing people my entire career, which is now in its 50th year… But what’s exciting about it is so much more to come, that’s what’s exciting at this point in my life.”
The comedy legend has opened up about his health woes over the years, and a hip injury in 2021 meant he had to go for an MRI scan – but the claustrophobia of being in the enclosed machine got the better of him.
He confessed on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon: “I’m very claustrophobic, which is why I was a month premature. To make a long story short, when I was alone, I swallowed four edibles [containing THC].
“The guy at the cannabis place said, because there’s a section for seniors, ‘Two will make you feel good.’ So I said, ‘I really want to feel fabulous’.”
Meg Ryan is reuniting with Billy Crystal for the Super Bowl (Image: Getty)
The star confessed that after the scan: “They take me out, and I walk out of the building and someone says, ‘Um, sir, you’re still in your gown. And your a** is hanging out.’ So I came back in, I got dressed, and I went to Taco Bell and had a nacho fry box.”
Billy has also injured himself doing something as simple as sneezing. He told Jimmy Kimmel Live in 2017: “It’s around 9:30, which is already an hour past my bedtime. And out of the blue, Jimmy, I sneeze. But a violent sneeze.
“I went, ‘Wow, that hurt a little bit’”. He woke with trouble breathing, and soon realised he’d torn a rib muscle in the process. He added: “And it’s not an injury that you want to brag about. I didn’t rescue a woman out of a burning car, I didn’t catch an orphan falling out of a burning orphanage… I sneezed.”