Judi Dench can no longer fly solo when it comes to attending events due to her deteriorating eyesight.
The Oscar-winning dame, who turned 90 last month, revealed on a recent episode of the Fearless With Trinny Woodall podcast how she’s been forced to adjust.
“Somebody will always be with me ... because I can’t see and I will walk into something or fall over,” Dench chuckled, joking that she’s likely to trip even in her own home.
She added she’s “always nervous before going to something” and, in prepping for an event, hopes “it goes well.”
Dench first revealed in 2012 that she was experiencing age-related macular degeneration (AMD), but said in a statement that she did not want “the numerous articles” written about her vision to be “overblown.”
“It’s something that I have learnt to cope with and adapt to – and it will not lead to blindness,” she told Reuters at the time, adding that “thousands and thousands” deal with the condition.
The American Academy of Ophthalmology says that AMD refers to damage to the macula portion of the retina, and is the leading cause of vision loss in those aged 50 or older.
In 2023, a decade after Dench first opened up about AMD, she shared on The Graham Norton Show that though she has a photographic memory, her failing vision had made it “impossible” to learn lines. – New York Daily News/Tribune News Service
