Dame Judi Dench, 90, can no longer leave house alone due to health issues

Hollywood legend Dame Judi Dench revealed in 2012 that she was slowly losing her vision and now she has issued a devastating update on her deteriorating eyesight

Dame Judi says she cannot leave the house alone due to her eye condition(Image: Dave Benett/Getty Images)

Dame Judi Dench has shared an update on her health.

The 90-year-old acting legend revealed in 2012 she is battling macular degeneration, a condition that has severely affected her eyesight. The Oscar-winning actress now has a carer who helps her around the house - and gets insulted by Dame Judi's pet parrot.

The James Bond actress has now explained her deteriorating eyesight means she cannot leave the home alone and needs someone with her. "Somebody will always be with me," she told Trinny Woodall's Fearless podcast.

"I have to now because I can’t see and I will walk into something or fall over." Dame Judi said she is always "nervous" before going to events: "I’m always nervous before going to something. I have no idea why… I’m not good at being on my own at all, nor would I be now."

The Oscar winner suffers from macular degeneration, which causes a deterioration in vision(Image: Stuart C. Wilson/Getty Images for BFI)

However, she admits the silver lining is that she no longer has to pretend she can see better than she can. "And fortunately, I don’t have to now because I pretend to have no eyesight."

In 2023, the veteran actress she can't see on film sets anymore and is unable to read. "I mean, I can’t see on a film set any more, and I can’t see to read, so I can’t see much. But, you know, you just deal with it. Get on".

She admits she gets "nervous" going to events(Image: Dave Benett/Getty Images for Geo)

She told the Mirror's Notebook magazine: "I mean, I can’t see on a film set any more, and I can’t see to read, so I can’t see much. But, you know, you just deal with it. Get on."

In 2021, Dame Judi said she struggled to read scripts and gets friends to repeat them for her. "You find a way of just getting about and getting over the things that you find very difficult.

"I’ve had to find another way of learning lines and things, which is having great friends of mine repeat them to me over and over and over again. So I have to learn through repetition, and I just hope that people won’t notice too much if all the lines are completely hopeless!"

According to the NHS, age-related macular degeneration is an eye disease that can blur your central vision. It usually first affects people in their 50s and 60s and does not cause total blindness but it can affect activities such as reading and recognising faces more difficult.

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