Many well-known individuals have had personal struggles with sickle cell disorder.
Tionne “T-Boz” Watkins
Tionne “T-Boz” Watkins is a Grammy Award-winning singer, known best for her role as lead singer of the group TLC. As a result of being diagnosed with sickle cell as a young child, she has been in and out of hospitals throughout her life.
Miles Davis
Miles Davis, famous for his jazz and trumpet playing, suffered from sickle-cell anemia, among other ailments. In 2006, Davis was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, as he died in 1991 of pneumonia at the age of 65.
Several NFL Stars
Tiki Barber was a star running back for the New York Giants for ten years, from 1997-2006. He went on to work for NBC on The Today Show and Football Night in America for several years. He has led a national awareness campaign “Be Sickle Smart: Ask Tiki About Iron” in order to raise awareness about the condition from which he suffers.
Ryan Clark was a safety in the NFL, and currently serves as an NFL analyst for ESPN. Clark raised awareness of sickle cell due to not being able to play in the Steelers season-opening, primetime game in 2012 since the game was to be played in Denver. Because of the high altitude in Denver and Clark having sickle cell, the health risks were too great to play. He also missed a playoff game in Denver the year before because of the condition, and missed significant amount of a previous season due to the health complications of playing in the high altitude with sickle cell.
Santonio Holmes, the former star wide receiver in the NFL, discovered he had the sickle cell trait in 2009. Unlike his teammate Ryan Clark, Holmes was able to play in Denver without terrible health effects. Holmes’s son has the disorder as well, so Holmes has tried to raise awareness of the condition, and he is the founder and president of the Ill & Long Foundation.