NEWSAubrey Plaza Reveals She 'Forgot How to Talk' After Suffering Freaky Stroke at 20 Years Old: 'I Was Paralyzed'
Aubrey Plaza revealed suffering from a 'freaky stroke' when she was 20 years old made her 'forget how to talk.'
Suffering from a “freaky stroke” at age 20 made Aubrey Plaza "forget how to talk."
The actress, 40, opened up about the terrifying incident when she appeared on The Howard Stern Show on Wednesday, September 11.
Aubrey Plaza spoke about how a stroke occurred at 20 years old.
“It just happened,” the Happiest Season star told Stern. “That’s when I was paralyzed, but only really for a minute or something. I lost my motor skills really briefly. The freakiest thing was I forgot how to talk.”
Aubrey Plaza said it was a 'wild' experience.
Recalling her health scare two decades back, the award-winning actress said it was a “wild” experience, especially since it occurred without any warning.
“It happened mid-sentence,” she said. “I took the train to Astoria to have lunch with my friends and I walked into their apartment ― I hadn’t even taken my jacket off.”
Plaza’s appearance on Stern's show was not the first time she talked about her condition.
In her 2017 interview with NPR’s Fresh Air, the White Lotus star remembered telling her two friends about a Hilary Duff concert that she had taken her younger sister to the night before the “stroke” happened.
Aubrey Plaza said her friends thought it was a 'joke.'
“I brought my hands to my throat, and I was kind of making like an ah sound because I couldn't talk because the blood clot was in my language center of my brain. So I had expressive aphasia instantly, which means that if you're talking to me, I could understand what you're saying in my mind and understand how to respond. But I couldn't actually get it out. I couldn't actually talk,” she told the outlet.
“I think [my friends] thought I was making a joke …” the film producer said. “But then after a couple of minutes, they kept saying, ‘Do you want us to call an ambulance?’ and I was aware enough to shake my head yes. I kept just shaking my head yes because I knew something was really, really wrong. But I didn’t know what it was.”
Aubrey Plaza said she couldn't talk.
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When asked in her NPR interview about the timeline, Plaza said, “There was no recovery.”
Instead, the actress had a cognitive therapy specialist work with her.
“And my writing came back, and I started talking again really quickly. I think I was lucky. I was so young that my brain healed itself really fast,” the Parks & Recreation star continued.
