A hidden diagnosis, shared at last
Alan Jackson is a Country Music Hall of Famer who has sold more than 60 million records and written the songs a generation grew up on. For years, though, he was carrying something his fans could not see. In September 2021, in an interview on NBC's TODAY, he told the world that he has been living with Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease, known as CMT.
I have this neuropathy and neurological disease. It's genetic that I inherited from my daddy. There's no cure for it, but it's been affecting me for years, and it's getting more and more obvious.
Alan Jackson, TODAY, 2021
How CMT affects him
CMT damages the nerves that carry signals between the brain and the muscles, so over time it changes the way a person walks, balances, and grips. Jackson has been candid that the disease has made the stage he commanded for three decades feel unsteady.
I know I'm stumbling around on stage. And now I'm having a little trouble balancing, even in front of the microphone, and so I just feel very uncomfortable.
Alan Jackson
The disease runs in his family. He inherited it from his father, and it has shown up in his grandmother and his sister too, the kind of family pattern that thousands of CMT families know well. In May 2024 he shared that the condition, which affects his legs, arms, and mobility, was continuing to progress. He has been equally clear about what it is not.
It's not going to kill me. It's not deadly.
Alan Jackson
What is Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease?
Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease is the most common inherited neurological disorder, affecting an estimated one in 2,500 people. It is genetic, passed down through families as it was in Alan Jackson's, and it gradually weakens the muscles of the feet, legs, hands, and arms. There is no cure yet. That "yet" is the whole reason the Hereditary Neuropathy Foundation exists.
A voice for the CMT community
By speaking openly about a disease most people have never heard of, Alan Jackson gave millions of Americans their first introduction to CMT, and gave the people who live with it every day the rare feeling of being seen. In June 2026 he took the stage one last time at Nissan Stadium in Nashville for his farewell show, and told a packed house what a life in music had meant to him.
If anyone has lived the American dream, it's me.
Alan Jackson, Nashville, June 2026
His candor turns awareness into momentum. At HNF, we work every day to make sure that momentum leads somewhere real: toward research, toward the first treatments, and toward a cure for everyone living with CMT.