NEWSShailene Woodley's Secret Health Scare: Actress Started Losing Her Hearing and Couldn't Walk Longer Than 5 Minutes Without Lying Down in Her 20s
Shailene Woodley detailed her secret health scare during a new podcast interview.
Sept. 24 2024, Published 1:42 p.m. ET
Shailene Woodley got candid about a secret health battle she was going through when she was younger.
“I haven’t spoken about what exactly it was because that just feels like a personal thing that I don’t need to disclose,” the star, 32, said on the Tuesday, September 24, episode of the “She MD” podcast. “But essentially, I was in a position in my early 20s. It got to the point where I was losing my hearing. I couldn’t walk for longer than five minutes at a time without having to lay down for hours and hours and hours and sleep. Everything I ate hurt my stomach.”
Shailene Woodley spoke about a recent health battle in a new interview.
Though she worked with doctors and "independent healers" to try to understand the situation, she wasn't given any clear answers.
“It was this conflation of issues and diagnoses and different doctors telling me different things,” she said. “I come from a very holistic background and studied herbalism so I was really keen on, ‘Alright I’m gonna work with real MDs and I’m gonna work with independent healers.’ And I was just trying to search for some sense of comfort in my own skin. It was a long journey. And throughout that decade, a lot of other things came from feeling so much discomfort physically."
The Divergent starlet said she became afraid of food. “And then going into the mental f------ that can happen with that — of body dysmorphia and confusion about identity and feeling safe in my own capsule," she admitted.
The star said it was hard for her to walk without lying down.
Fortunately, "it was a journey that ultimately physically resolved itself,” she revealed. “I am very healthy. I’m so happy to be able to say that. And also, it forced me to really take a deep look and become introspective.”
The actress said she was also afraid to eat.
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“That was the path for me, alongside the physical healing — was acknowledging the mental side of the healing process for myself. Which involved looking at real traumas and real PTSD that I had experienced at various times in my life — without going into detail about what they were — they definitely took a toll on my body," she added.
The Hollywood star previously touched upon her health battle in 2020.
The Hollywood star previously shared tidbits about that time a few years ago.
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“I was very, very sick in my early 20s,” she told The New York Times in 2020. “While I was doing the Divergent movies and working hard, I also was struggling with a deeply personal, very scary physical situation.”
