This sounds like a conspiracy but it’s really just the strange rambling of actor Woody Harrelson who was presenting an award to fellow actor Michael J. Fox when he revealed the two drank the blood from a cobra together in the 80s. Harrelson and Fox are both 61 years old and have been friends for decades. Harrelson shared enduring moments the pair shared before taking the strange detour at Saturday’s 2022 Governors Awards in Los Angeles.
Referencing a trip he took to Thailand to visit Fox in the late 1980s, Harrelson said that the pair found themselves spectators at a fight between a cobra and a mongoose.
“He taunted a bunch of these cobras and then he found the orneriest cobra, grabbed it by the neck, threw it in a cage with mongoose, where I saw the craziest fight I’ve ever seen between any animals other than studio executives,” Harrelson described the scene.
“And the mongoose won, they took the snake, yep, tied it by its tail, run the blood out, half-filled four glasses with cobra blood and half with Thai whiskey,” he said, explaining that “drinking the cobra blood is called ‘becoming brother to the snake.’”
He and Fox apparently decided to accept the challenge, but according to Harrelson, the “Family Ties” actor had some difficulty keeping the concoction down.
“Mike and I drink lots of things together, and he can hold his own — can I say, he’s Canadian. But Mike promptly vomited his snake cocktail. Never could hold his cobra blood,” Harrelson laughed.
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It was a very strange introduction…
Harrelson went on to talk about Fox’s diagnosis and his fight to become an activist for a cure for Parkinson’s disease. “He never asked for the role of Parkinson’s advocate, but it is his best performance. Michael J. Fox sets the ultimate example of how to fight and how to live,” Harrelson said.
Fox thanked his friend for the introduction, joking that the pair had certainly “done some damage” back in the day — before addressing the audience.
“I refer to Parkinson’s as the gift that keeps on taking. But it truly has been a gift,” he said, adding, “I’m really blunt with people about cures. When they ask me if I will be relieved of Parkinson’s in my lifetime, I say, ‘I’m 60 years old, and science is hard. So, no … I am genuinely a happy guy. I don’t have a morbid thought in my head — I don’t fear death. At all.”
Erica Carlin is an independent journalist, opinion writer and contributor to several news and opinion sources. She is based in Georgia.
