From diabetes and multiple sclerosis, to lupus and Lyme disease, celebrities aren't immune
from invisible illnesses.
Here are a few famous figures who've been open about medical issues you wouldn't know
they had just by looking.
Selma Blair, star of Legally Blonde and Cruel Intentions, bravely disclosed that she was
living with multiple sclerosis back in 2018.
In a detailed Instagram caption that started by describing how the costume director for
"Another Life" helped her get dressed for her scenes, she wrote, in part,
"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."
Having learned to live with her difficult diagnosis, Blair has been extremely open about
her life with MS ever since — especially how she sees the silver linings.
In 2021, she told Town & Country,
"I'm very comfortable in my body, mostly because I am now making a deeper positive connection
with it.
I am fascinated by this body and this life.
I am humbled and pleased to be any inspiration for people."
"I'm a really positive person, it's been a hard couple days."
The actor has also become a champion for other people living with MS, through being open
about her own experience with the illness, but also by participating in philanthropic
campaigns.
One such campaign was Natural Beauties, coordinated by makeup artist Gucci Westman, which featured
women described of "all ages, all complexions, all attitudes," each of whom picked a charity
to support through the initiative.
In 2021, Nick Jonas partnered with The Global Movement for Time in Range, a platform attempting
to raise awareness for a powerful new kind of technology that would help diabetes patients
lead a full life.
Amid the partnership, Jonas spoke to Healthline about how he's felt living with the condition
since he was 13 years old, in the early days of the Jonas Brothers phenomenon.
For Jonas, letting Type 1 diabetes rule his life was never on the table.
He told Healthline
"I've always been very determined and passionate about the work that I do.
This was a scary kind of reality that I had to face, but not something where I was going
to, for a single second, let it slow me down."
His determination has gotten him far: The Jonas Brothers recently reunited as a musical
act and created a Netflix special.
Jonas and his wife, Priyanka Chopra Jonas, recently welcomed their first child together.
Jonas has stated he's felt honored to be able to share his experience of living with Type
1 diabetes with the world, saying:
"What's interesting about diabetes is that it affects so many people, not just the individual
themselves, but their friends, family [...] Should someone see something on my channel, whether
they are diabetic or not, and being able to share that with someone they know who lives
with the disease, is a really interesting and exciting thing to get to do."
When Gabrielle Union was ready to have a baby with her husband, Dwyane Wade, she had more
trouble getting pregnant than she had originally anticipated.
After a series of unfortunate miscarriages, she was finally given some clarity as to what
was going on with her body.
During the BlogHer conference in 2018, Union revealed,
"So, towards the end of my fertility journey, I finally got some answers.
Because everyone had just sort of chalked it up to, 'you're a career woman, you've prioritized
your career, you've waited too long, and now you're just too old to have a kid, and that's
on you for wanting a career.'"
"The reality is, I actually have adenomyosis, which is endometriosis of the muscle."
Union went on to explain, understandably frustrated, that she had symptoms of the condition since
her early twenties, with heavy periods lasting up to 10 days.
Unfortunately, nobody was able to explain to her what was happening: doctors put her
on birth control to treat the symptoms of the disease rather than the cause.
In the end, Union and Wade welcomed their baby girl Kaavia in 2018 via surrogate, as
the actor announced on Twitter.
Posting on Instagram on Christmas Day 2021, Union called her daughter her "Best Gift."
In 2015, Selena Gomez revealed that she had been diagnosed with lupus.
In an interview with Billboard, she got candid about the real reason she checked into rehab
in 2013, and what it was like enduring the public's assumptions about her stay.
Selena told the publication about rumors that she was an addict, saying,
"I wanted so badly to say, 'You guys have no idea.
I'm in chemotherapy.
You're a**holes.
But I was angry I even felt the need to say that.
It's awful walking into a restaurant and having the whole room look at you, knowing what they're
saying.
I locked myself away until I was confident and comfortable again."
Since then, the actor and singer has been incredibly vulnerable about her diagnosis,
in particular when she shared that she had received a kidney transplant from her friend,
actor Francia Raisa, in 2017.
Gomez wrote on Instagram, explaining why she had been absent from the media, saying,
"So I found out I needed to get a kidney transplant due to my Lupus and was recovering.
It was what I needed to do for my overall health.
I honestly look forward to sharing with you [...] my journey through these past several
months as I have always wanted to do with you."
Gomez has endured many difficult things in her life, but what got her through her difficult
situation was thinking about how sharing those experiences could help others.
“I just hope this inspires people to feel good, to know there is really good people
in the world.”
Bella Hadid hasn't spoken much about her experience of living with Lyme disease, but on the rare
occasions she has, she has shared heartbreaking details.
Posting on her Instagram Story to educate people about the wide range of symptoms experienced
by those with Lyme, Hadid wrote,
"Every day I feel at least 10 of these attributes without fail ... since I was probably 14,
but more aggressively when I turned 18."
In 2016, Hadid, who shares her diagnosis with her mother Yolanda and brother Anwar, attended
the Global Lyme Alliance gala, while she was still dating The Weeknd.
The model revealed how her boyfriend dealt with her condition, saying,
"He's great with it, he's definitely been learning a lot about it.
When I say I'm sick, he understands and kind of leaves it alone."
In 2021, Hadid shared a photo of herself on Instagram hooked up to an IV, with the caption
reading,
"Living with a few chronic auto immune disorders = always finding time for my IVs."
Lyme disease is a fairly common condition, and a number of celebrities have been affected
by it as well, including Ben Stiller and Avril Lavigne.
The latter wrote about it in a letter published to her official website in 2018, sharing,
"I spent the last few years at home sick fighting Lyme disease.
I felt like I was drowning."
Over the years, rapper Lil Wayne has been candidly open about his experience of living
with epilepsy, a diagnosis he once told Katie Couric that he received as a child.
As fans of Wayne know, the hip hop mogul has dealt with seizures his whole life, but wouldn't
have known about them if his loved ones and medical team didn't explain what was happening.
In 2013, he told MTV News' RapFix Live,
"I told them the other day, 'Y'all can tell me right now that y'all was lying', like 'You
know what?
We lyin' ain't nothin,' and I'd have to believe them because I don't know.
I go to sleep and wake up in the hospital."
In 2017, TMZ reported that Lil Wayne had once again suffered a bout of seizures while he
was staying in Chicago.
He was hospitalized and had to cancel an upcoming concert in Las Vegas.
TMZ had previously reported two separate occasions when the rapper had unfortunately had to deal
with more seizures.
While some have blamed Weezy's use of codeine as the cause, the rapper has stated he sometimes
forgets to take his medication, which leads to the seizures.
Venus Williams is a world-class tennis champion, but her success on the court has not been
without its struggles.
Williams shared that she is living with Sjögren's syndrome, a type of autoimmune disease.
As part of a PSA for the American College of Rheumatology, Williams said,
"As a world champion, I know what it's like to be on top.
But I also know what it's like to be one of 54 million Americans battling a rheumatic
disease.
After six years of swollen joints, fatigue, and eye-mouth dryness, I was finally diagnosed
with Sjögren's syndrome.
Today, I follow my rheumatologist's treatment plan, and I am back on top of my game."
Before her diagnosis, Williams sacrificed a lot, including the one thing that was most
important to her.
In 2019, she told Prevention.com,
"Unfortunately, that's typical of people with autoimmune disease.
They're misdiagnosed or too sick to function.
I literally had professional tennis taken away from me before I got the right diagnosis."
Thankfully, with the right treatment and certain lifestyle changes, Williams has been able
to effectively manage her condition.
In addition to taking medication, she switched to a plant-based diet.
In 2017, she told Health,
"​​Once I started I fell in love with the concept of fueling your body in the best
way possible.
Not only does it help me on the court, but I feel like I'm doing the right thing for
me."
Lady Gaga has lived with Fibromyalgia, a condition that causes nerve pain, for years.
The Star Is Born actor has explained she thinks the physical condition stemmed from the emotional
toll of being sexually assaulted — another difficult experience she has been extremely
vulnerable and open about.
In other words, she believes her physical health is tied to her mental health, an idea
that's far from novel.
For Gaga, one of the most frustrating aspects of her condition is that people dismiss it,
implying that she's somehow making it up.
In 2018, she told Vogue,
"I get so irritated with people who don't believe fibromyalgia is real.
For me, and I think for many others, it's really a cyclone of anxiety, depression, PTSD,
trauma, and panic disorder, all of which sends the nervous system into overdrive, and then
you have nerve pain as a result.
People need to be more compassionate.
Chronic pain is no joke.
And it's every day waking up not knowing how you're going to feel."
"Many people don't know what it is, and we need to all get together and figure this out."
In 2017, the star disclosed her diagnosis to the world, in the spirit of the honesty
she always strives for with her "Little Monsters," and to announce that she had to cancel her
European tour.
She wrote on Instagram,
"As I get stronger and when I feel ready, I will tell my story in more depth, and plan
to take this on strongly so I can not only raise awareness, but expand research for others
who suffer as I do."
Alecia Beth Moore, more commonly known as the singer Pink, lives with serious asthma.
In 2006, a series of severe asthma attacks sent the performer to the hospital.
That wasn't the only time her asthma gave her a bad health scare: in 2020, during the
early days of the pandemic, Pink and her family contracted COVID-19.
It began with her son, Jameson, who was only three years old at the time.
Pink told Ellen DeGeneres via video conference,
"It's been probably 30 years since I needed a nebulizer breathing treatment in the hospital,
or anything like that [...] when [Jameson's] fever was staying and going up, I woke up
in the middle of the night and couldn't breathe, and I needed a nebulizer for the first time
in 30 years."
While Pink's asthma has caused her many difficulties over the years, it thankfully hasn't negatively
affected her singing career.
In fact, it's possible that singing has helped alleviate some of her symptoms.
Pink herself has talked about how being upside down onstage actually helps her breathe better,
saying,
"Did you know singing can actually help asthma symptoms?"
As she wisely added, "who knew?!"
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