Celebrities already live in an exclusive club,
but some are more unique than others -- not because of their class status, but rather
the extremely rare medical conditions they live with. Some of these conditions are misunderstood,
so it's worth discussing them. These are the celebs who have rare medical conditions.
Billie Eilish has used her platform to raise awareness of synesthesia,
a condition in which people have unusual sensory experiences
like hearing colors, feeling sounds, and tasting shapes. The Grammy-winning
artist discussed her synesthesia during an August 2021 appearance on The Tonight Show,
as she told host Jimmy Fallon that she perceives him as a "vertical brown rectangle." Interestingly
enough, the condition runs in Eilish's family, as her brother and dad also both have it.
"It's a thing in your brain where you associate random stuff to everything."
Eilish explained that for her, every day of the week has a color, a number, and a shape to it,
and she also noted that the condition is central to her creative process. As she put it,
"It inspires a bunch of stuff. So, like, all of my videos for the most
part have to do with synesthesia, all of my artwork [...] everything I do live."
That inspiration was clear in 2019 when the singer unveiled the Billie Eilish Experience,
a museum exhibit designed across 14 rooms, curated by Eilish herself, to showcase "the sights,
smells, and sensations" of her album When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?
Best known for his role as precocious youngest child Brick Heck on the ABC sitcom The Middle,
Atticus Shaffer lives with osteogenesis imperfecta. Also known as brittle bone disease,
the National Organization for Rare Disorders classifies osteogenesis imperfecta as:
"a rare disease affecting the connective tissue [that] is
characterized by extremely fragile bones that break or fracture easily."
In a 2011 interview with Parade Magazine,
Shaffer noted that he wants to encourage people to embrace their differences. As he put it,
"My message to people with or without a condition is the fact that you can still do anything you
set your mind to. You just have to do it in a slightly different way than other people."
He also discussed his condition in a 2015 TV Guide interview,
emphasizing that he doesn't want to be defined by it. As he noted,
"My condition is just a small part of me and it's the same as hair color, eye color,
whatever [...] That was what my mom instilled in me ever since I was a baby: 'Be yourself, you are
exactly the way you're supposed to be. You just have something that makes you unique, different.'"
The ABC Family drama Switched at Birth has been lauded as a paragon of deaf representation.
Like the character she played on the show, Katie Leclerc has Meniere's disease,
an inner ear condition that affects approximately 0.2 percent of the
American population. In a 2014 interview with Women's Health, Leclerc explained,
"My ears are full probably 60 percent of the time, where you feel like you have to pop them.
There's lots of pressure. Probably 60 percent of the time I get a severe head rush,
like when you stand up too quickly."
Meniere's is closely associated with vertigo, which is one of its main complications, along with
fluctuating hearing loss. However, regardless of the potential severity of the disease,
Leclerc has managed to have a clear-headed outlook towards her condition. As she told Self in 2012,
"I try to approach everything with positivity. You live in the moment,
day to day. My sister also has the disease, and it hasn't stopped her — she's an inspiration to me."
In 2018, after being body shamed by trolls, model Gigi Hadid revealed that she has Hashimoto's
disease, a condition that consists of the dramatic loss of thyroid follicular cells.
According to a study published in the Journal of Autoimmune Diseases
in 2005, it affects up to two percent of the general population. As Hadid tweeted,
"For those of you so determined to come up with why my body has changed over the years,
you may not know that when I started at 17, I was not yet diagnosed with Hashimoto's disease;
those of you who called me 'too big for the industry' were seeing
inflammation and water retention due to that."
Hadid also discussed her diagnosis in an interview with E!, as she revealed,
"I've loved my body when I was just diagnosed and I loved [it] going through it and I love my
body now, and it's just about everyone accepting their body as it matures and knowing that it's not
always going to look the same and you can love yourself in all different shapes and sizes."
"Where do you find that confidence to just tell it like it is and speak your truth, always?"
"Well, I think it's just good to be honest."
Only a small number of the population is known to have the extremely rare condition hyperthymesia,
which causes people to recollect nearly every second of their lives. Marilu Henner,
one of the stars of the classic sitcom Taxi, is one of those few who have the condition.
In a 2010 chat with 60 Minutes, she showcased the incredible manifestation of her condition,
as she recalled some uncanny specifics about her shoes,
like the specific date that she first wore them. Referencing one particular pair, she recounted,
"These I wore on April the 21st [2009]. So that was a Tuesday."
Henner also talked about her hyperthymesia in 2012 with ABC News, as she noted,
"When somebody gives me a date or a year or something, I see all these little movie montages,
basically on a time continuum, and I'm scrolling through them and flashing through them."
She also revealed that the condition is beneficial to her acting career, as she explained,
"I learned how to embrace my memories and celebrate them
and explore them without hesitation whatsoever."
"It was this kind of skill that I developed, but I liked doing it as well."
Cleidocranial dysplasia is an extremely rare disorder that occurs once per one million people.
The condition is characterized by bones being formed differently or being more fragile than
is typical. The main features of CCD include abnormalities of the skull and collarbone,
along with dental abnormalities.
Stranger Things star Gaten Matarazzo has the condition,
which affects the formation of his teeth and bones. During a 2018 appearance on The Doctors,
he opened up about having already had a couple of surgeries and four extractions
of extra teeth. He also discussed the stigma he faced when trying to secure acting roles.
"It's one of the biggest reasons why I haven't been getting roles, because of my lisp, and
the teeth situation, and my height."
In 2020, Matarazzo underwent another surgery to remove extra teeth. Afterwards,
he shared on Instagram that the surgery was a complete success.
When she was 27 years old, writer and podcast host Emily V. Gordon was diagnosed with the
extremely rare Still's disease, which is a form of inflammatory arthritis.
Her condition has since progressed to a similarly rare complication:
common variable immune deficiency, which is a type of dysfunction of the immune system.
The illness initially mystified Gordon's doctors. They knew she had an infection in her lungs,
but they were unable to figure out the root of it. As a result, she was kept in a medically induced
coma for 12 days. After eliminating leukemia and HIV as possible explanations, her doctors
finally determined that she had adult-onset Still's disease. The diagnosis inspired Gordon
and her then-boyfriend, now-husband Kumail Nanjiani to write the 2017 film The Big Sick.
In a 2018 interview with the Immune Deficiency Foundation,
Gordon explained that her subsequent diagnosis of common variable immune deficiency highlighted
the discrimination that many people with chronic illnesses face. As she revealed,
"I felt isolated. No one understands this. You feel like a bore. No one wants to talk
about how you're sick again. I'd lie about why I wasn't meeting up with my friends."
However, Gordon has since found solace and empowerment in the
community of people who suffer chronic illnesses. She said,
"I've found support when I didn't really know I was looking for it.
I've learned that I'm not alone."
Danny DeVito was born with multiple epiphyseal dysplasia, also known as Fairbank's disease,
which is an uncommon form of dwarfism. According to the Journal of the American Academy of
Orthopaedic Surgeons, it affects somewhere between one in 10,000 and one in 20,000 people.
In a 2012 interview with The Guardian, DeVito said that being short only felt like a disadvantage
for him when he was a teenager, as he described his height to the outlet as "five foot nothing."
But DeVito was ultimately able to utilize his uniqueness to his advantage.
His distinct characteristics distinguished him from his outwardly conventional peers,
thereby enabling him to secure acting roles. As he explained to The Guardian,
"Early on, when I'd go in for a part, people would go, 'Oh'. Later, when they rewind that meeting,
it would be, 'We've seen 20 actors for the role of the servant in The Merry Wives of Windsor,
but wait a minute, we've done this already with this guy,
so let's try this Danny guy.' I got two Shakespeare parts like that."
As Los Angeles Magazine put it succinctly in an interview with DeVito in 2020,
"Fairbank's disease might have prematurely stopped his vertical growth,
but he blossomed in virtually every other way."
"You know, you go out and dazzle 'em with your footwork."
Myelodysplastic syndrome is a rare blood disorder that affects about 20,000 Americans per year,
according to the National Organization for Rare Disorders.
For people living with this syndrome, their bone marrow doesn't produce enough healthy blood cells.
Good Morning America anchor Robin Roberts is one of the people with the condition,
which she developed after recovering from breast cancer.
In a deeply personal essay published on ABC News, Roberts revealed,
"Sometimes the treatment for cancer can cause other serious medical problems.
Today, I want to let you know that I've been diagnosed with MDS
or myelodysplastic syndrome [...] My doctors tell me I'm going to beat this — and I know it's true."
Roberts was right, as she did indeed recover from the condition.
In 2017, she celebrated 5 years since her MDS recovery, having received a bone
marrow transplant after she underwent ten days of chemotherapy. As Roberts said of the transplant,
"It's considered to be a rebirth. And I definitely felt that I was getting another chance at life."
"I woke up, and I'm like, 'Where y'all been?!'"
Panic attacks are a fairly common experience, but they can also lead to
agoraphobia, a rare but severe complication characterized by a fear of public spaces.
A 2020 study published by Europe PMC estimates that approximately 1.7% of the general population
experiences agoraphobia. In a 2001 installment of the America Undercover docuseries, entitled
"Panic: A Film About Coping," actor Kim Basinger discussed her own experience with agoraphobia.
She recounted a panic attack that led to her rushing out of a health food store,
driving home, and then not leaving for six months.
Following her divorce from Alec Baldwin in 2002, Basinger's former brother-in-law Billy
Baldwin made some insensitive statements to the New York Post in 2007, as he said,
"One minute she could be very loving and caring and familiar,
and made you feel like you were a normal part of her world. Then in the next breath,
it all went bizarre [...] I don't know where agoraphobia begins and narcissism ends."
These comments underscore the stigma associated with mental health disorders, particularly ones
as rare as agoraphobia. Basinger's spokeswoman Annette Wolf refuted Baldwin's specific remarks
about her client's condition, and added that Basinger had been treated for the disorder.
Six years later, Basinger opened up to Vanity Fair,
as she revealed that she's found ways to carry on with her condition outside of medication.
She even confronted her fears head-on by going skydiving with her daughter. As Basinger declared,
"I wanted to face everything I was afraid of."
If you or someone you know is struggling with mental health, please contact the Crisis Text
Line by texting HOME to 741741, call the National Alliance on Mental Illness helpline
at 1-800-950-NAMI (6264), or visit the National Institute of Mental Health website.