Russell Andrews, a veteran actor who’s appeared in “Better Caul Saul,” “Insecure,” and “Straight Outta Compton,” has revealed that he’s been living with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).
The 64-year-old shared the news Saturday evening on CNN’s “The Story Is with Elex Michaelson” alongside his fiancée, actress Erica Tazel (“Justified”). He said he was diagnosed with the disease — a neurodegenerative disorder that attacks nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord — in late fall of last year after experiencing pinched nerves and twitching, both common signs of early ALS.
“I thought I had a stroke during COVID. It was a stressful time. We didn’t work for three years about, and then we had the back-to-back strikes,” explained Andrews, referring to the SAG-AFTRA strike and Writer’s Guild of America strikes that shut down Hollywood in 2023. “A lot was going on… There were moments, there were twitches. I thought I was having pinched nerves in my neck, and they were quite frequent. And I was not able to do things that I would normally do. I was dropping cups and glasses, and at night, it felt like things were running up and down my arms at certain times, and it was the nerves.”Andrews said that he’d played football “well into college,” and “it appears that maybe CTE may be a source of this… we won’t know, of course, until everything is said and done and they can study the brain.”
