While delivering remarks Thursday at the groundbreaking ceremony of Project Angel Foods The Chuck Lorre Family Foundation Campus in Los Angeles, Chuck Lorre revealed he was diagnosed with ulcerative colitis when he was just 22.
When I was a young man, I was really really very ill. I was severely ill with ulcerative colitis. I weighed about 110 pounds and was told I needed a colectomy, he said. I didnt know what to do, I didnt know where to go. I had no money, no insurance.
I managed to find my way to the Cedars of Lebanon, which was a teaching hospital, he continued. I was fortunate enough to get an anesthetic-free colonoscopy in front of a classroom of students.
He joked that the experience served as great preparation for a lifetime in television.
The TV impresario praised the nonprofit for its commitment to dismantling food insecurity for adults and children affected by life-threatening illnesses. During the pandemic, I learned about Project Angel Food, he said. It is a food delivery system tailored to peoples health needs. I was like, I want to be a part of this because this is personal.
He said his colitis was put in remission after about six months on a wonderful nutrition program, and Ill never forget that it changed my life, he said, adding, It wasnt Western medicine that improved his health, but rather, it was food.
Chuck Lorre talks about his semi-public colonoscopy when he was just 22 years old, at the groundbreaking of Project Angel Food’s The Chuck Lorre Family Foundation Campus.@ProjAngelFood pic.twitter.com/AZ2ueGtO7x
Marc Malkin (@marcmalkin) August 3, 2023 Construction of the new $51 million campus the Lorre foundation donated $10 million is expected to begin in January and be completed by 2027. Founded in 1989 as a service for people with HIV and AIDS, Project Angel Food has served more than 17 million meals. It delivers medically tailored meals daily to 2,500 Los Angelenos.
Sheryl Lee Ralph and Jamie Lee Curtis also shared their praise for Project Angel Food at the groundbreaking. Ralph remembered her peers who were affected by the AIDS epidemic. For so many of them, there was no help, no love, no food there was nothing but the worst that people could show other human beings, the Abbott Elementary star said.
Were here together because a group of people said, We dont know what to do, but we know what we need, which is love and food, Curtis added. They werent doctors or scientists, they werent going to be able to come up with a cure. They were facing the same amount of hatred and misinformation that was being spewed about a population, and they said, Lets feed them.
When we put people first is when real change happens, said Ralph. Everyday, Project Angel Food puts people who need help first. I dont want us to ever forget that there was a time when people who needed help gay people, men, women, of all different colors. It is when we consider each one of us as human beings is when change happens.
. @thesherylralph was one of the first celebrities to step up at the start of the AIDS epidemic. She remains committed to this day. Here she is at today’s @ProjAngelFood event. pic.twitter.com/Wijy4NhGxP
Marc Malkin (@marcmalkin) August 3, 2023 Ralph recalled some of the first gay men she knew who died of AIDS, including a couple who lived across the street from her apartment in the Chelsea neighborhood of New York City. She also met a man at a hospital in Harlem who had a sign on him that said, Do not touch. I do not know what drew me towards him, but he looked up at me and I hugged him, Ralph told Variety. He literally melted on me.
Curtis said the first persons with HIV she knew was the late Richard Frank, one of her costars on the sitcom, Anything But Love. He had a makeup artist walk up to him with a baggie and in the baggie was a sponge, some powder and a hairbrush, Curtis remembered. And she looked at him and said, I dont have to touch you. I watched him go on tour with a play when he was so sick and trying to continue to do his art. He and his husband, George, died when they were 41 years old.