Being in the public eye isn’t for the faint of heart. Celebrities and their personal lives are constantly under the microscope, and fans watch their every move. But fans don’t always find out everything. Many celebrities deal with under-the-radar health conditions — including one that left one of Hollywood's most beloved actors unable to see, hear, or walk.
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Condition: Vasculitis
In a sneak peek for an upcoming episode of “Running Wild with Bear Grylls: The Challenge,” Ashton Kutcher tells the adventure TV program host about a rare autoimmune disorder that left him feeling "lucky to be alive." “Like two years ago, I had this weird, super rare form of vasculitis, that like knocked out my vision, it knocked out my hearing, it knocked out like all my equilibrium.” It took him about a year to build each back up again, Kutcher says.
Condition: Brain aneurysms
Four-time Emmy award nominee Emilia Clarke is well-known for her role as Daenery in HBO's "Game of Thrones," but a couple of brain aneurysms during the early years of filming almost tore the actress down from her rise to fame. Clarke opened up to Variety about her experience surviving two brain aneurysms — one in 2011, the other in 2013 — explaining that she is lucky to even be alive, let alone be able to continue acting. She told the magazine, “The amount of my brain that is no longer usable — it’s remarkable that I am able to speak, sometimes articulately, and live my life completely normally with absolutely no repercussions."
Condition: Tourette syndrome
Grammy winner Billie Eilish has had a whirlwind career that led to teen superstardom. But the 20-year-old struggles with a health condition many of her fans don't realize she has. At age 11, Eilish was diagnosed with Tourette's — a neurological disorder that can cause repetitive movements and unwanted, uncontrollable vocalizations. She has explained that when her outbursts happen around other people, they normally think she's just trying to be funny, so they laugh — a response she says is offensive. She says she has outgrown many of her tics, but still has subtle ones. “These are things you would never notice if you’re just having a conversation with me, but for me they’re very exhausting,” Eilish said.
Condition: Type 2 diabetes
Tom Hanks suffers from Type 2 diabetes, which he attributes to his poor lifestyle choices. In an interview with Radio Times, Hanks said, "I'm part of the lazy American generation that has blindly kept dancing through the party and now finds ourselves with a malady."
Related: 24 Famous People You Probably Didn't Know Were Diabetic
Condition: Multiple sclerosis
In 2018, Selma Blair opened up about her health struggles on Instagram, writing: “I am disabled. I fall sometimes. I drop things. My memory is foggy. And my left side is asking for directions from a broken GPS. But we are doing it. And I laugh and I don’t know exactly what I will do precisely but I will do my best.” She has since appeared on red carpets sporting a cane. Blair, who had a risky stem cell transplant and chemotherapy to rebuild her immune system, is in remission and has a new memoir, “Mean Baby.”
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Condition: Fibromyalgia
Morgan Freeman’s fibromyalgia causes such debilitating joint pain that he often has to veer away from some of his favorite hobbies, like riding horses and sailing. Luckily for fans, his condition doesn’t affect his beloved voice.
Condition: Fibromyalgia
In her 2017 Netflix documentary “Gaga: Five Foot Two,” singer and actress Lady Gaga opened up about her experience with fibromyalgia, a chronic pain disease. She has even had to cancel some of her concerts because of severe pain.
Condition: Alopecia
Before Chris Rock made a G.I. Jane joke about Jada Pinkett-Smith’s buzz cut at the 2022 Oscars and received a smack to the cheek from Will Smith, many people didn’t know about the actress’ alopecia. But it wasn’t the first time she opened up about her condition. During a May 2018 episode of her Facebook Watch show “Red Table Talk,” she recounted when she first started to lose her hair, explaining how when she was taking a shower, she wound up with handfuls of her hair. She wore a turban to cover up her hair loss but has since embraced her shorter hairdo.
Condition: Sjogren’s syndrome
Venus Williams is such a tennis superstar that you’d never know she suffers from an autoimmune disease. Her condition affects her ability to produce fluids like tears and spit and causes joint pain. Her symptoms even caused her to drop out of the 2011 U.S. Open.
Condition: Type 1 diabetes
Diagnosed at 19 years old, Halle Berry has been dealing with her diabetes for more than three decades. She manages her condition well, maintaining a healthy lifestyle, which is why many fans don’t even know she has the disease.
Condition: Type 1 diabetes
Singer Nick Jonas was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes at 13. At the time, the pop star was on tour with his band, The Jonas Brothers. He landed himself in the hospital where he found out that his blood sugar was more than eight times higher than the normal range. Jonas went on to found Beyond Type 1 — an organization dedicated to raising funds for research while empowering people with diabetes.
Condition: Psoriasis
With so much of her career built up around her beauty, Kim Kardashian-West took it pretty hard when she was diagnosed with psoriasis in 2011. The condition causes red, blotchy patches on her skin. Though she used to be self-conscious about it, she has embraced her condition and no longer tries to hide it, she has said. Kardashian-West has tried light therapy in an attempt to reduce her symptoms.
Condition: Lyme disease
Lyme disease caused country pop superstar Shania Twain to develop dysphonia, which caused her to lose her voice. The singer retired from music in 2004 to focus on her health. Eventually, Twain found voice therapy techniques that worked for her and she reentered the music scene in 2015.
Condition: Lupus
Singer Selena Gomez revealed in 2015 that she suffers from lupus — an inflammatory disease that causes the immune system to attack its own tissues, causing rashes, joint pain, and fatigue. When she took a break to undergo chemotherapy, many speculated that she might have been struggling with addiction. Her complications continued and, in 2017, she underwent a kidney transplant, which she got from her friend actress Francia Raisa.
Condition: Asthma
Pop star Pink struggles with asthma. The singer has sporadically spoken about her condition, telling Women’s Health in 2009, “I have to be able to run up those stairs as many times as I do and be able to sing at the same time. I’m an asthmatic.”
Condition: Kidney dysplasia
“Modern Family” star Sarah Hyland suffers from kidney dysplasia — a condition that starts in the womb when either one or both of the baby’s kidneys don’t develop correctly. Her condition has caused her to lose weight and muscle mass and her 2012 kidney transplant even caused her to struggle with hair loss.
Condition: Epilepsy
As such a high-energy entertainer, many people don’t realize that rapper Lil Wayne suffers from epilepsy. He has had the disease since childhood and has been hospitalized for seizures multiple times over the last several years, with the most recent happening in 2017. His private jet has even had to make an emergency landing once after he suffered multiple seizures in the air.
