A harrowing update. Aly and AJ Michalka revealed that their father, Mark Michalka, has been hospitalized for pneumonia and COVID-19 after he left them a worrying voicemail.
“Reminder to check in on your loved ones this holiday season,” the sisters tweeted from their official account on Wednesday, December 22. “Our Dad wasn’t feeling well & we became alarmed after hearing a voicemail from him. Immediately dropped everything & drove to his house.”
After Aly, 32, and AJ, 30, went to check on him, they realized he needed medical attention. “Long story short he has Covid & Pneumonia,” the singing duo added. “He’s being treated at a hospital now.”
In a second tweet, the musicians reflected on how it feels to become more responsible for an aging parent’s health. “It’s hard to come to terms with, but as we get older it’s our turn to take care of our parents when they won’t/can’t take care of themselves,” they wrote. “A lot of times they want to hide their suffering from us because they think it’s a burden, when really it’s our duty to step in.”
The “Pretty Places” singers are the latest celebrities to speak out about their personal connection to the coronavirus as cases rise across the United States. Earlier this month, Billie Eilish revealed that she suffered from a breakthrough case of COVID-19 in August.
“I didn’t die, and I wasn’t gonna die, but that does not take away from how miserable it was. It was terrible,” the Grammy winner told Howard Stern on December 13. “I still have side effects. I was sick for, like, two months almost.”
The “Bad Guy” singer went on to credit her vaccine with saving her life. “I think if I weren’t vaccinated, I would have, like, died, because it was bad,” she explained. “When I say it was bad, I more just mean that it felt horrible. But really, in the scheme of COVID, it was not bad. You know what I mean? When you’re sick, you feel f–king horrible.”
The pandemic has also continued to wreak havoc on concert tours and film and TV production schedules, with plenty of events being postponed and canceled again because of outbreaks. The Critics Choice Association announced on Wednesday that the 2022 Critics Choice Awards, originally scheduled for January 9, will be postponed to a still-unannounced later date.
“After thoughtful consideration and candid conversations with our partners at The CW and TBS, we have collectively come to the conclusion that the prudent and responsible decision at this point is to postpone the 27th Annual Critics Choice Awards,” the organization told Variety in a statement. “We will be sharing additional details with our friends and colleagues throughout the entertainment industry as soon as we can.”