Brittany Snow Opens Up About Her Dad's Alzheimer's Diagnosis: 'He Was My Best Friend'

The "Pitch Perfect" alum says there are "moments" where her father is "in there" — but says grieving has been a "slow process"

Brittany Snow says her father John has Alzheimer’s disease, sharing that grieving is “a slow process” as he was her “best friend.”

While discussing the documentary Daughters — about the relationships young girls have with their incarcerated fathers — on the latest episode of Broad Ideas with Rachel Bilson and Olivia Allen, the Pitch Perfect alum talked about her father’s diagnosis.

“I've actually never never shared this before, but I feel compelled to, I guess, now. My dad has been dealing with Alzheimer's for a really long time. And my dad and I are, like, probably the closest of my family,” Snow, 38, shared.

“Over the past 10 years, to the point now where ... there is no, like, physical touch in that way,” she said, a reference to how the daughters in the documentary couldn’t physically be comforted by their fathers.

“There is no home in that way,” said Snow.

“To have the gift of grieving it in a slow process has been really beautiful,” said Snow, who recently costarred with Nick Jonas in the drama The Good Half as siblings confronting their grief after their mother’s death.

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“I get to realize what I love about him and appreciate each thing in these tiny little moments that then get lost. And although it's quite sad, it's so much better of a gift than it happening suddenly.”

Alzheimer’s is the most common form of dementia, with the National Institute on Aging explaining it's caused by a "combination of age-related changes in the brain, along with genetic, environmental, and lifestyle factors."

The Parachute director said that his diagnosis impacts her other relationships, because “I'm losing something, and so I try to make up for it with other people.”

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Although Snow called it “a baffling disease to witness,” she said it can be “beautiful to get to see someone still there, but in a different version of themselves.”

Snow shared that her father, now 85, “was old when he had [me] — sorry, dad.”

“I've always known that he was an older dad, but he was, like, my best friend,” she said, adding there are “moments where I’m like, ‘You’re in there.’ “

She shared that her father, who lives in Florida, “gets very sad when I leave because he doesn't understand where I'm going.”

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“Leaving is really hard, and there's a part of my brain that says, ‘You should just stay forever.’ “

But, Snow says, “the thing that I need to really wrestle with is I still have to come and live my life.”

“He would want me to.”

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