Aaron Lazar attended the 2024 Tony Awards on Sunday (June 16) night in a wheelchair, months after he was diagnosed with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS).
The 47-year-old Wolf of Wall Street actor and Broadway veteran smiled for photos on the red carpet with his fiancée, Nawal Bengholam.
Lazar, best known for his roles in Broadway musicals including Dear Evan Hansen, Les Misérables and The Light in the Piazza, announced he was diagnosed with ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, in January on an episode of Matthew Teague Miller’s Carefully Taught podcast.
“I was diagnosed almost two years ago with ALS. It’s a terminal disease that kills your nerves and takes your freedom before it takes your life,” he said at the time. “I’ve been dealing with the symptoms of that for even longer; it took about eight months of the terror of symptoms, muscle twitches and some muscle weakness and muscle atrophy, to start to understand what the hell was going on.”
He added: “I’m now at a place where I see it as a divine opportunity disguised as an impossible situation. Doctors and medicine don’t know what causes non genetic ALS. There’s literally no reason for its development, if there’s no gene associated with it.
“So I’ve just been on a journey to try and understand how I got it, and how I can fix myself... I don’t believe it’s terminal. I believe I’m going to beat it.”
ALS develops in just 1.5 to 3 per 100,000 people every year in North American and European populations.
The 77th Tony Awards, which honor the best in live Broadway theater, were once again hosted by Tony-nominated actor Ariana DeBose at the Lincoln Center’s David H Koch theater.
This year’s ceremony saw several first-time winners, including Daniel Radcliffe and Jonathan Groff for their performances in the hit revival of Merrily We Roll Along, Sarah Paulson for Appropriate and Angelina Jolie for The Outsiders, which she co-produced with her 15-year-old daughter, Vivienne.
Billy Porter was also presented with the 2024 Isabelle Stevenson Tony Award in recognition of his dedication and contributions as an activist and spokesperson for the LGBTQ+ communities.
Elsewhere during the show, Alicia Keys and Jay-Z brought the audience to their feet with a surprise performance of their 2009 hit “Empire State of Mind,” which features in Keys’s musical Hell’s Kitchen.
Hell’s Kitchen was nominated for Best Musical, alongside Illinois, Suffs, Water for Elephants and The Outsiders, with the latter going on to win the category.
