Morgan Freeman suffered a medical emergency as he developed a “contagious infection” that made him seriously ill.

The 86-year-old American actor was looking forward to his press trip in the UK before falling ill and developing a fever when he was set to fly across the pond to promote his new spy series Special Ops: Lioness.

Freeman’s absence was noted on Tuesday when his co-stars Zoe Saldana and Nicole Kidman appeared alone at a London screening of the Paramount+ thriller.

Saldana and Kidman also made an appearance on The One Show during which host Alex Jones said she felt “gutted” about Freeman not being there.

“Morgan has a fever and his doctor felt he had a contagious infection, so he cancelled his trip. He is fine now,” a representative for the actor said.

Freeman’s new spy thriller revolves around the CIA’s fictional Lioness Program and is centered on Joe, played by Zoe Saldana, who is trained as a navy female seal by Kaitlyn, who is played by Nicole Kidman.

“You follow Joe and how she wrestles with how this life takes a toll on her personal life and her family and marriage but how she’s unwilling to let the Kaitlyn down and fulfil a mission,” Zoe said on the BBC show.

The show, which was filmed in Mallorca, is set to premiere on July 23.

Freeman’s health scare comes fifteen years after his near-death experience caused by a major car crash that made him develop fibromyalgia, a chronic disorder resulting in widespread pain, muscle stiffness, and fatigue.

“It hurts when he walks, when he sits still, when he rises from his couch, and when he missteps in a damp meadow. More than hurts. It seems a kind of agony, though he never mentions it. Despite surgery to repair nerve damage, he was stuck with a useless left hand,” Tom Chiarella said of the actor’s condition back in 2012.

“It is stiffly gripped by a compression glove most of the time to ensure that blood doesn’t pool there. It is a clamp, his pain, an icy shot up a relatively useless limb.”

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