Chicago PD star Jason Beghe does NOT have Parkinson’s Disease

The internet can be a funny place. It’s useful sometimes, like when fans are looking into the return date of Chicago PD (January 17), but it also leads to speculation that’s completely unfounded. Take for example, the debate as to whether PD star Jason Beghe has Parkinson’s Disease. It’s one of the top autofill searches that comes up on Google, ranking even higher than queries about the actor’s voice!

So what gives? Well, there are a couple reasons why PD fans are curious about Beghe’s health status. The biggest one pertains to his performance as Hank Voight. During many episodes, the character can be seen shaking or nodding his head a lot, and fans have noticed it occur so often that there’s been inquisitions into whether the actor playing him has an off-screen ailment.

It’s a fair question to ask, but the answer is, thankfully, no. Beghe does NOT have Parkinson’s Disease, though his propensity for shaking his head a lot could possibly stem from an injury he suffered when he was younger. Beghe was involved in a devastating car accident in 1999, and suffered several broken ribs, bruised lungs, and most notably, a broken neck.

It was so severe, in fact, that Beghe went into a coma. “I was in a coma for three and a half weeks,” he told The Daily Beast in 2017. “When I would come out of the coma, since I was intubated from being on life support, I would pull the tube out and it made it even more f**ked up.” The injuries he suffered as a result of the accident led to his notably gravelly voice, and likely led to the distinct manner in which he moves his head.

As far as physical activity goes, the high school wrestler prefers to spend his days in his garden. “Gardening is badass, man!” he told Muscle and Fitness. “It’s not a half-hour workout. It’s a full day. It’s rough and tough. We have our own fruit and cook our own vegetables at the ranch.” Beghe also likes to do a lot of his own stunt work on Chicago PD, despite suffering the occasional injury.

He tore his bicep tendon during a scene in which he had to flip another actor on a gurney. He was forced to wear a sling for a while, but he got right back on the horse as soon as he was cleared to shoot. “As long as I can keep putting breath on a mirror,” he noted. “I’ll show up.”

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