Dan Aykroyd acknowledges, almost joyfully, in a 2004 NPR interview with Terry Gross that he feels naked without a police badge. Not literally nude. Incredibly uncomfortable. He always has one with him. That would be nothing more than a peculiarity that most people would find amusing. However, Aykroyd saw it as an indication to himself, his physicians, and ultimately the general public that the mind behind some of the sharpest humor in television history was also negotiating something more complicated underneath the surface.
In the 1980s, Aykroyd was diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome after his wife urged him to visit a physician. Since then, he has stated that the diagnosis clarified a lot. In hindsight, his fixation on parapsychologist Hans Holzer, his badge habit, and his obsession with ghosts and law enforcement all made sense. Additionally, Aykroyd did something uncommon for a celebrity of his generation: he gave credit to the diagnosis rather than handling the revelation as something to hide. He claimed that those obsessions were the direct source of Ghostbusters. A movie that made almost $300 million on a $30 million budget is hard to argue with.
He had spent much more time treating another ailment. After being diagnosed with Tourette’s Syndrome at the age of twelve, Aykroyd experienced severe verbal and physical tics that caused him to withdraw as a teenager. The symptoms gradually improved with therapy, but it’s intriguing to take a moment to consider this picture: a timid, jittery boy from Ottawa who would one day stand in front of millions of people on Saturday Night Live and make them howl. It’s possible that something in him was sharpened by the discomfort of those early years—a need to fully inhabit other people to the point where his own body ceased to matter.
Now and then, people ask on the internet whether Dan Aykroyd is ill, usually in response to a particular incident. He had severe stomach pain in June 2016 and was taken to a Santa Monica hospital. When a well-liked public figure ended up in an emergency room, the incident quickly made headlines. He was 63 at the time. That same day, he was set free. Aykroyd himself moved on without much fanfare, which seems perfectly in character given what we know about him, and no significant underlying cause was made public.
Then November 2025 arrived. Aykroyd reportedly survived a 50-foot fall through a skylight, which should have been fatal or at the very least catastrophic by any reasonable calculation. He claimed that “divine intervention” was responsible for his survival. Walking away from that kind of fall at seventy-three is the kind of thing that puts an end to a conversation. The extent of his injuries and the course of his recuperation in the months that followed are still unknown.
All of this doesn’t really paint a picture of a sick man. It depicts a man who has quietly managed actual neurological conditions throughout his adult life, survived a potentially fatal accident in his seventies, and navigated a medical scare in his sixties, all while remaining remarkably grounded about it, at least in public. It seems that Aykroyd has never been particularly interested in portraying suffering for an audience, which may explain why these stories appear and then vanish so rapidly. He discusses Asperger’s with the same casual ease that he does when talking about the Blues Brothers or Crystal Head Vodka.
Only those who are close to him are truly aware of his current state of health. However, it’s difficult not to believe that this person has always been more resilient than the headlines imply when observing his trajectory over decades.
FAQs
Q1: Does Dan Aykroyd have any diagnosed medical conditions?
He has Asperger’s Syndrome and Tourette’s, diagnosed in his eighties and at age 12, respectively.
Q2: What happened when Dan Aykroyd was rushed to the hospital in 2016?
He was treated for stomach pain in Santa Monica and released the same day.
Q3: Did Dan Aykroyd’s autism affect his career negatively?
He credits Asperger’s with directly inspiring Ghostbusters through his obsessive interests.
Q4: How did Dan Aykroyd survive a 50-foot fall in 2025?
He attributed his survival to divine intervention after falling through a skylight.
Q5: Is Dan Aykroyd currently in poor health?
No serious ongoing illness has been publicly confirmed as of 2025.