Roseanne Barr is losing her vision to macular degeneration, glaucoma
Roseanne Barr is losing her sight to macular degeneration and glaucoma, she said in an interview published Monday.
“My vision is closing in now,” she told the Daily Beast, calling the experience “harsh” because she reads a lot.
“Then I thought, ‘Well, I guess I could hire somebody to read for me and read to me,’” said Barr, who presumably could afford to do just that: Her “Roseanne” is still running in syndication more than 25 years after it debuted.
“But I like words and I like looking. You do what you have to do. I just try and enjoy vision as much as possible -- y’know, living it up.”
Sparking it up too. The onetime Peace & Freedom Party presidential candidate favors legalization of marijuana and can be seen smoking it in “Roseanne for President!,” a new documentary about her 2012 campaign.
“It’s good for me for that because I have pressure in my eyes,” the 62-year-old comic told the Daily Beast. “It’s a good medicine for a lot of things.”
And while Barr answered “yeah” when asked if her macular degeneration would leave her blind, other celebrities have answered “no” to that question. (Untreated glaucoma, however, can lead to complete loss of vision.)
“It’s something that I have learnt to cope with and adapt to -- and it will not lead to blindness,” actress Judi Dench said in 2012 after revealing her macular degeneration to the Daily Mirror.
Responding to a rumor that he’s “going blind,” author Stephen King said in an FAQ on his website that he has a predisposition to macular degeneration.
The condition “eventually results in blind spots and a loss of vision,” he wrote, “but I don’t have any of the symptoms yet -- just that predisposition and I think it’s something that I may have to face in the future, but, no, I’m not going blind.”
“Roseanne for President!” premiered last week at the Tribeca Film Festival.
Follow Christie D’Zurilla on Twitter @theCDZ and Google+. Follow the Ministry of Gossip on Twitter @LATcelebs.
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