Denzel Washington Battles Swollen Tongue While Performing in Othello on Broadway

Denzel Washington braved deadly swords in Gladiator II, but the most dangerous weapon turned out to be his own choppers — with sources telling The National ENQUIRER that the star recently bit his tongue so badly that he’s having a hard time speaking his lines as Othello!

The 70-year-old is playing Shakespeare’s jealousy-riddled Moor on Broadway, premiering at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre Feb. 24, but he’s tongue-tied — hobbled by a swollen licker that makes speaking difficult and forces him to slow down.

“I have a line: ‘Whither will you that I go to answer this your charge?’ It’s hard because my tongue is swollen,” he notes. “It has affected everything!”

Speaking Shakespeare’s Elizabethan English is tough for anyone, but a swollen tongue is definitely a handicap.

Denzel hasn’t revealed just when the tongue twister happened, but he says he nearly chomped off a chunk.

His ability to speak clearly has become even more important to him recently, since he became a minister in a Harlem church. He says his new closeness with the Lord and becoming a preacher actually fulfills the prediction that a woman gave him just after he’d flunked out of college in 1975.

“It was prophesied in my youth that I would travel the world and preach or speak to millions of people,” he recalls. “She didn’t say anything about me being an actor, but I have traveled the world, and I am speaking more and more.

“I used to think that I was doing that through my work. Now I’m trying to be a bit more specific, speaking about my faith.”