Former NFL all-star quarterback Brett Favre says he has Parkinson’s disease. Favre played 20 seasons in the NFL, primarily with the Green Bay Packers. He retired in 2011. Favre won a Super Bowl and was a three-time NFL MVP. He also suffered his share of concussions and said he often had memory loss.

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Mike Ehrmann/Getty Images via NFL

Brett Favre, the Hall of Fame quarterback who led the Green Bay Packers to a Super Bowl victory in 1997, revealed during congressional testimony Tuesday that he has Parkinson’s disease.

Favre, 54, shared his diagnosis Tuesday during a hearing before the U.S. House Ways and Means Committee on accountability and welfare reform.

Since 2020, Favre has been embroiled in a controversy over the misuse of government funds in Mississippi, his home state. Audits revealed that government money meant for needy families was used to pay Favre and to fund projects he supported, including the construction of a volleyball facility at the University of Southern Mississippi, where his daughter played.

Another project was an investment in a pharmaceutical company called Prevacus, which claimed to be developing a drug to treat concussions.

“I thought it would help others,” he said at Tuesday’s hearing. “It was too late for me, because I was recently diagnosed with Parkinson’s.”

Favre has said he was unaware the funds were intended for welfare. He has never been criminally charged in connection with the controversy, and he has filed a defamation lawsuit against Mississippi state officials over the matter.

Parkinson’s disease is a nervous system disorder that can cause tremors, movement and balance problems, and speech problems. There is no cure, and symptoms usually worsen over time.

Parkinson’s and other brain disorders, such as dementia, are associated with a history of concussions. So is the degenerative brain disease CTE — chronic traumatic encephalopathy — which has been posthumously diagnosed in hundreds of NFL players whose brains have been donated to researchers for study.

In a 2018 interview on the Today Show, Favre said he was diagnosed with “three or four” concussions during his NFL career, which lasted from 1991 to 2010.

Brett Favre #4 of the Green Bay Packers is tackled by a Minnesota Vikings defensive end during the NFC wild-card game at Lambeau Field on January 9, 2005 in Green Bay, Wisconsin. Favre said Tuesday that he is battling Parkinson’s disease, which comes after a 20-year all-star NFL career in which he suffered numerous concussions.

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But he added that as research into concussions progressed in the years since his retirement, he came to realize he had likely suffered many more concussions.

“If you have ringing in your ears, you see stars — that’s a concussion. And if that’s a concussion, I’ve had hundreds, probably thousands of them in my career, and it’s scary,” he said at the time.