38 Celebs who have severe illnesses

38 CELEBS WHO HAVE SEVERE ILLNESSES

Sure, a lot of celebrities look as if their lives are perfect, but underneath all the fancy clothing and makeup, many of the them suffer from the same issues that some of the rest of the world suffers from.  And just as with many things in life, illnesses do not discriminate against the famous.  Let’s take a quick look at eight celebs who suffer from chronic illnesses

Michael Phelps

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The Olympic superstar was diagnosed with ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder) when he was 9 years of age.

Miley Cyrus

Photo credit should read Julio Cesar Aguilar/AFP/Getty Images

It was revealed to the world in 2009 that Miley Cyrus had tachycardia, a heart condition that causes her heart to beat faster than normal. She told MTV that  “the type of tachycardia I have isn’t dangerous. It won’t hurt me, but it does bother me. There is never a time on stage when I’m not thinking about my heart.” Maybe she should consider slowing down because she is loved by so many and everyone wishes that her heart will beat forever. Who’s kidding because nothing can stop Miley. She marches to the beat of her own drum.

Jon Hamm

Photo by Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images

Mad Men star, Jon Hamm, announced to the public that he has a nasty case of vitiligo, which is a disease that causes the loss of skin color in blotches. According to Toronto Sun, he made a statement about his discolored looking hands. “I have vitiligo. It’s stress-oriented. It comes and goes and waxes and wanes. This did not exist before the show.” I hope all his efforts towards an Emmy award were worth it.

 

Paula Deen

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A personality in the world of cooking – Paula Deen once battled depression and then agoraphobia for two decades. After being married at 18, pregnant at 19 and orphaned at 23, she because severely depressed leading her to stay in her home, cooking. “I could concentrate on what was in my pots and block out what was in my head,”

Pamela Anderson

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Actress and model Pamela Anderson has Hepatitis C, which is an infectious disease affecting primarily the liver. She told People magazine that she has”got a good 10 years left in me, which is sad. Maybe 15, if I’m lucky,” Anderson, 47, told Us Weekly magazine. “It’s scary,” she says, “but lately I’ve been feeling great. For some reason, my liver keeps getting healthier.”

Warren Buffet

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American business magnate, Warren Buffet, made an announcement that he had stage I prostate cancer and wrote a letter to the Berkshire shareholders explaining his situation.

Kathy Bates

Photo by Jason Merritt/Getty Images

The 66-year-old actress told People magazine two years ago that she was undergoing a double mastectomy. She stated, “after much consideration, I underwent a double mastectomy. Luckily, I don’t have to undergo radiation or chemo. My family call me Kat because I always land on my feet and thankfully this is no exception.”

Toni Braxton

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The Grammy Award winning singer was diagnosed with Lupus and APS at only 15 years of age. Her uncle has already lost his life from this vicious disease.

Prince

Kevin Winter, Getty Images

The eccentric singer has suffered from seizures since he was was a child. He revealed in a 2009 interview on the PBS show Tavis Smiley, that he was born epileptic and that his “mother and father didn’t know what to do or how to handle it but they did the best they could with what little they had.”

Alec Baldwin

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Alec Baldwin went public with his diagnosis of chronic lyme disease in 2011 when speaking to the New York Times. Lyme disease is a bacterial infection that can be spread through the bite of a tick. Talk to your doctor if you think a tick may have bitten you.

 

Morgan Freeman

Timothy Hiatt/Getty Images North America

Freeman went public with his diagnosis of fibromyalgia in 2013. His symptoms include “excruciating pain up and down the arm.” Fibromyalgia is a condition in which a person has chronic pain and tenderness in the joints, muscles, tendons, and other tissues.

Cher

PacificCoastNews.com

Cher was diagnosed with Myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME)/chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) in 1991. ME/CFS is a severe illness that can lead to symptoms that affect the brain and gastrointestinal, immune, and cardiac systems.

 

Tom Hanks

Anthony Harvey/Getty Images Europe

Hanks is Hollywood royalty but that doesn’t mean you aren’t susceptible to disease. He has been living with diabetes since the age of 36, Tom’s diabetes label recently changed to Type 2.

Rosie O’Donnell

Photo by Robin Marchant/Getty Images

 

America’s most popular and controversial comedian, Rosie O’Donnell, is known for having health problems after she suffered a heart attack in 2012. On her website, she stated “last week i had a heart attack, i had an ache in my chest/both my arms were sore/everything felt bruised.” She had stent installed in her arteries as part of a procedure called percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI), sometimes referred to as coronary angioplasty.

Catherine Zeta Jones

Source: Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images North America)

The Welsh actress who has won Academy, Screen Actors and BAFTA awards suffers from bipolar disorder. In April 2011, Catherine checking herself into Silver Hill Hospital in New Canaan, Connecticut and sought treatment for bipolar II disorder.

Jack Osborne

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Best known as the son of Black Sabbath rocker, Ozzy Osborne, Jack announced in June 2012,  that he had been diagnosed with relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis.

 

Lil Wayne

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The rapper was diagnosed with epilepsy and hospitalized for close to a week after three consecutive seizures. The attacks come on without any warning: “No warning, no nothing I don’t feel sick. I get headaches real bad. And the headaches? I didn’t get no headaches or nothing,” he told MTV News correspondent Sway Calloway in May. “I go to sleep and wake up in the hospital. I don’t feel anything.”

Stuart Scott

Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images

Stuart Scott does such a great job on ESPN as one of their lead anchors. He may look healthy and happy but he informed his fans on his Twitter account that it wasn’t the case. Recently, Scott discovered that his appendix cancer has returned.

 

Nick Cannon

Photo by David Becker/Getty Images for iHeartMedia

TV personality and DJ Nick Cannon was hospitalized for quite some time after doctors discovered that he had a kidney failure and blood clots in his lungs. He told People magazine that “the blood clot thing was probably the scariest because … I’ve known people who have passed away from that. I thought I was getting better, and then that happened, so that kind of came out of nowhere.” His health problems stem from a lupus type of autoimmune disease.

Kristen Johnston

Johnston at the 14th Annual Lupus LA Orange Ball
FayesVision/WENN.com

Kristen Johnston is an two-time Emmy Award-winning television actress who has a lead role on the television series 3rd Rock from the Sun. In an interview with People Magazine, Johnston informed the public that she has lupus myelitis, which is a neurological disorder caused by inflammation of the spinal cord.

Robin Roberts

Larry Busacca/Getty Images North America

The GMA anchor was diagnosed with myelodysplastic syndrome, a rare blood disorder, and underwent a bone marrow transplant in 2012. But she continued to fight for her health in 2013, including a brief hospital stay in April.

Bret Michaels

Photo by Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images

He might have been the lead singer for the band Poison, but this didn’t stop him from developing a heart disease.  Back in 2010, he suffered from a mini-stroke. He’s not alone though.  Nearly 800,000 Americans suffer from a stroke each year.

Kim Kardashian

Source: E!

She might think she’s perfect, but we all know she’s not.  And doctor’s confirmed in 2011 that she suffers from psoriasis.

Montel Williams

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Way back in 1999, Montel told the public that he suffered from Multiple Sclerosis.  To effectively cope with the disease, Montel closely monitors his diet and exercise as well as the medication that he takes.

Halle Berry

Photo: Andrew H. Walker/Getty Images

At the young age of 22, Halle was diagnosed with diabetes.  She didn’t let the condition take over her life, though, as we all know she is one of the most famous actresses the world has ever known.

Michael J. Fox

Jeff Lipsky

If you’re in your late 20’s or older, you probably remember when Michael J. Fox was diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease.  It somewhat surprised everybody because the condition doesn’t usually affect a person until they are at least 50 years old.

Carrie Fisher

Photo by Jason Merritt/Getty Images

The actress famous for playing Princess Leia in the Star Wars Triology struggled with substance abuse and bipolar disorder. “I am mentally ill. I can say that. I am not ashamed of that,” she once told ABC News Primetime.

ANDREW COWIE/AFP/Getty Images

The Serial Mom actress suffers from rheumatoid arthritis. When she was told by her doctor that she would spend the rest of her life in a wheelchair, she “fired that doctor immediately.”

HugoWeaving

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Here’s another one who was diagnosed at a very young age with suffering from a chronic condition.  Hugo was told he had epilepsy when he was only 13 years old.

Elizabeth Hasselbeck

You probably recognize her as the co-host of the “The View,” but you what you might not know is that she has struggled with celiac disease for many years. She released a cook book in 2012 called Deliciously G-Free and is about living a gluten-free lifestyle.  More than 2 million people have this same condition.

Marcia Cross

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While some people would consider headaches as an illness that most people suffer from, when it comes to migraines, this changes the playing field.  If you’ve ever suffered from a migraine, you know just how debilitating the condition can be.  Marcia Cross has suffered from them since she was 14 years old.

Joan Lunden

Photo by Stephen Lovekin/Getty Images

TV personality and co-host for Good Morning America, Joan Lunden, was recently diagnosed with breast cancer. She has been a host on the show for 17 years and her personality has never let public down. She is a remarkable women and refuses to give into her disease.

 

Jim Kelly

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Jim Kelly (James Edward Kelly), a hall of fame quarterback in the NFL for the Buffalo Bills and in the USFL for the Houston Gamblers, commenced his chemotherapy and radiation treatment back in March designed to treat the recurrence of  his oral cancer.

Kristin Chenoweth

Michael Loccisano/Getty Images North America

The pocket rocket Tony and Emmy award-winning actress and singer, has been battling asthma for the past 10 years.

Bauer Griffin

The Malcom in the Middle actor suffered two mini strokes – one in 2012 and another in 2013. “Almost a year to the day, I experienced another mini stroke,” he wrote Monday on Twitter. “Hopefully that will be the last. Miserable.” He is only 28.

 

Camille Grammer

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The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills alum and ex-wife of Fraser actor, Kelsey Grammer, had surgery related to genetic risk of endometrial cancer.

Brooke Burke-Charvet

Angela Weiss/Getty Images North America

The Dancing with the Stars champion underwent surgery for thyroid cancer,  “I never thought I’d hear the word ‘cancer’ in relation to myself. The [thought] in my mind when I [heard the news] is that I’m a mother, I’ve got four children, I’ve got a family counting on me.”

Sarah Hyland

Source: Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images Europe

The Modern Family star has been struggling with kidney disease since childhood, when she was diagnosed with abnormal kidney development at the age of nine. In 2012 she underwent transplant surgery ..the donor? Her father.
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Chaen’s view

Brenda José suffered from Crohn’s Disease for 19 years. Crohn’s is rare disease that affects the digestive tract and intestines. She was undiagnosed for 1 year and was one of the first diagnosed cases in Hong Kong. She nearly did not survive the first surgery in 1995 – 7 inches of her perforated intestines were removed after a 7 hours exploratory surgery which left a 7 inch scar. At one stage she was only 72 pounds (32.7 kgs) – that really broke my heart to see her in such a state. I took good care of her through all the good and bad times.

Some symptoms of Crohn’s are being very skinny (nutrients are not absorbed well with inflamed intestines) and nail clubbing.

Front and side views of nail clubbing

She had a short recovery of a few years before succumbing to a second perforated intestines which she did not survive (toxic seeped and poisoned the major organs causing failure). She volunteered to be a mystery patient for young doctors studies at University Hospital, Kuala Lumpur. She help counselled some patients dying from Crohn’s. She said the experience from Crohn’s Disease totally changed her life and priorities. Her spiritual journey started then. She faced death and mortality in her life.

She was very strong. She did not let the disease give her any excuses not to live a fulfilling life.

I was diagnosed with mild Bipolar II Disorder late in my life in 2007. I just thought I had a hot temper but there are a few key characteristics that are instinctively Bipolar. As a corporate, mindset and life coach and I’m very open about this and I come across all forms of mental illnesses and personality disorders in my graduates and clients. My coachees can relate to me when they share their mental, emotional and relationship issues.

It’s nothing to be ashamed about – despite the social stigma. My experience is most people are supportive and empathetic to the struggles of mental illnesses as everyone would have encountered at least one if not several friends or relatives with a mental disorder in their life. There will be friends who are judgmental or who are in denial, but you don’t need to their approval or support. Part of my mission and passion is to bring greater awareness of mental illnesses and personality disorders and for sufferers to take charge of their lives.

Our physical bodies fall sick so does our brain, mind, emotions, and spirit.
Read about 1 in 4 adults suffer from a mental illness. My Bipolar Disorder story.

A few people had judged me in the past and had unfairly used that against me when I revealed that I suffer from Bipolar. But I’m highly functional and productive – feedback from my doctor friends and graduates. I’ve learned to live with it and not to fight it. In fact, I use my heightened hypomania state (hypo meaning below) for creativity, problem-solving, writing, intuition, self-actualization, and the 7th Sense i.e. channeling Angel Brenda, accessing higher energies,  conversing with God, and connecting with the Spirit World.

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