It was rather an unceremonious moment when Brett Favre revealed he had Parkinson’s disease. Sitting in a Mississippi courtroom last year, he was talking about a failed concussion drug investment when he slipped in the news that the drug might have helped others, but for him, “And I’m sure you’ll understand, while it’s too late for me because I’ve recently been diagnosed with Parkinson’s.”

Sure, the job carried risk. Favre had once brushed off early signs, counting only “three or four” concussions, until better awareness made him reckon with the truth: “I’ve had hundreds, maybe thousands.” He still remembers the brutal shot from Bears lineman Cory Wootton in 2010, the one that left him unconscious on the turf for nearly 15 seconds– and effectively ended his career. Over time, the toll of those hits began showing up in subtler ways. He caught himself forgetting things, losing his train of thought, brushing it off at first as the normal wear and tear of age. But by 48, he feared it was CTE, another neurodegenerative disease tied to repeated head trauma.

For someone who “wrote the book on head trauma,” and prided himself on knowing the long-term consequences of football, the signs felt all too familiar. All until he couldn’t feel his right arm through a jacket. Or when he had to use his left hand to guide the right with a screwdriver. That was the time to bounce between five doctors before finally getting a Parkinson’s diagnosis. It immediately got him thinking about the afterlife. But first, he had to find the words to bring that truth home.

During a sit-down interview with The Sage Steele Show, he peeled back the curtain on how that conversation. He walked straight into the bedroom where his wife, Deanna, and their youngest daughter were talking in the bathroom. “I said, ‘I got Parkinson’s.’ I don’t even know if she heard the Parkinson’s part. She was like, ‘What are you doing in here?’ And I was like, ‘I came to tell you I got Parkinson’s.’” The words didn’t register right away.

“What are you talking about?” Deanna asked, confused. Favre explained he had just left the doctor’s office, but she pressed him further: “Wait, what made you go get checked? Who was the—” trying to sort out how this had even come about.

Favre told Steele he had been dealing with nagging symptoms for a while. At that moment, he turned to his wife with a single question: “You didn’t notice them?” Her answer was blunt: “No.” “That’s the problem,” Favre admitted. 

“You see someone every day, they’re normal to you. But I’d occasionally run into someone at a restaurant who hadn’t seen me in a while, and they’d say, ‘Hey Brett, you look stiff.’” Looking back now, he realizes the signs were there all along: “When I look back at some of the videos, my right side… how could anyone not see the rigidity?” Even then, Deanna struggled to accept it. 

“I don’t believe it,” she told him. But today, Favre says, she knows what to look for. “Now, after the fact, she’ll see it and say, ‘Maybe it’s time for your medicine.’” That medicine has become a daily reality for him. And as Favre revealed on the show, those signs are no longer subtle. 

Brett Favre reveals worsening Parkinson’s symptoms

Brett Favre admitted that living with Parkinson’s brought challenges he never imagined. “What symptoms sort of arised here lately is I’m having a hard time swallowing,” he told Sage Steele. “There’s times where I think I’m choking. It’s sort of scary because they can’t fix that. I try not to think about it. I try to just focus on getting after the day.” And still, the thoughts catch up with him when the day winds down. 

“There are often times during the day, maybe at night, when I decompress and I think I’m progressing a little bit,” he explained. But his doctor had offered a sobering perspective: progression of the disease doesn’t follow a straight line. “There’s no way to predict who is going to progress faster than others,” Favre recalled him saying. “We all age differently.” That should bring in some relief from the uncertainty, but “I constantly think about it even though I know I shouldn’t,” Favre admitted.

“Am I gonna be the one that ages quicker? Is the disease going to eventually dominate me where I think right now I’m dominating the disease? I wake up every day and think, ‘Did I progress 2% or am I staying the same? Am I looking into this progression more than I should?’ All those thoughts go through my mind.” Still, he’s leaned on competition to push back.

“Run. Prior to the hip replacement, I was running in half marathons,” Favre said. The hip issues that dated back to his NFL days eventually forced surgery, but not before he found something unexpected for him in distance running. “If you’d have told me when I retired that I would run period, especially if no one was chasing me, I would have said, ‘You’re out of your mind,’” he laughed. He started just to keep himself fit, but soon, he began enjoying it. 

He also roped in his wife as the couple participated in a short sprint course at the Brett Robinson Alabama Coastal Triathlon in 2014. It took him an hour and three additional minutes (including a two-minute penalty) to complete a 300-yard swim, 10-mile bike ride, and two-mile run. In 2017, he participated in the Big Beach Half Marathon, a 13.1-mile race. Soon, he had to give up that, too. But that doesn’t mean he gave up on racing altogether. 

“Other than running, I can pretty much do what I want,” he added. His new passion was cycling, and now you can’t spot him without his cycling cap. He even flaunted it during his vacation trip to Rome, Italy, posing before the Colosseum in April 2024.

The same year as his first marathon in 2017, he also participated in the annual Trek 100 alongside 2,200 cyclists to help the Midwest Athletes Against Childhood Cancer Fund generate funds. The event generated around $1 million. Cycling is something that has kept Favre’s competitive spirit alive, which refuses to die even after nearly 15 years of his retirement. The mountains still get a little tough for him to trek, but he feels he’s still not restrained. So, he “can’t complain.”