Ted Turner Hospitalized for Pneumonia

Ted Turner, the founder of CNN, is recovering in a medical rehab after coming down with pneumonia that left the media mogul hospitalized, TMZ reports. A rep for him reveals he’s recovering at a rehabilitation center in Florida , with the rep explaining Turner suffered a “mild case of pneumonia” but says he “expects a full recovery” as Turner remains “resilient and engaged in professional and personal endeavors.”

Six years ago, Turner revealed in an interview with Ted Koppel on CBS Sunday Morning that he’d been diagnosed with Lewy Body Dementia. According to the Alzheimer’s Association, Dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB) “is a type of progressive dementia that leads to a decline in thinking, reasoning and independent function. Its features may include spontaneous changes in attention and alertness, recurrent visual hallucinations, REM sleep behavior disorder, and slow movement, tremors or rigidity.”

During his interview with CBS, Turner explained some of the symptoms he most frequently experienced included exhaustion and forgetfulness. LBD is considered to be the second most common type of dementia — the first being Alzheimer’s disease. But in his 2018 interview, Turner explained his case is “not nearly as bad.”

Turner famously wed actress and activist Jane Fonda in 1991. She divorced him in 2001, and revealed in interviews and in a memoir that she adjusted her personality to fit what all of her husbands desired, including Turner. 

“He was sexy. He was brilliant. He had two million acres by the time I left. It would have been easy to stay,” Fonda said of her relationship with Turner at the time, as reported by PEOPLE. “But there was this angel on my shoulder…it was hard to even hear her voice, [saying], ‘If you stay, you will die without ever becoming who you can be. You will not really be authentic.’”