Does Brad Pitt Have Face Blindness?
Brad Pitt has been one of the most celebrated actors in the world, and now it seems that he has admitted that he might be suffering from a condition called, "face blindness."
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We’ve all been in that uncomfortable situation. You’re at an event, hanging out at the bar, or just in another social setting and someone comes up and addresses you by name. You panic because you don’t remember meeting them, but they certainly know you. Your blood pressure rises, and you can feel your face getting flush as you try to come up with something, anything, to bring back the memory of their name into your head. While this is something that’s bound to happen to all of us at one point or another, it’s something that Brad Pitt says is a normal occurrence.
Now, we know what you’re thinking – sure, he’s a celebrity and a major one at that, so it would be hard for him to recognize everyone he’s ever met. But there’s more to Brad Pitt’s story. According to the legendary actor, he suffers from facial blindness, a condition that prevents him from not only recalling professional acquaintances and longtime fans but also something that hinders his ability to recognize his own family members. You read that right, sometimes those related to the Fight Club actor get the cold shoulder when they approach him for a catch-up chat and Pitt is chalking it all up to his medical condition. Mind you, it’s a medical condition that he’s never received a diagnosis on.
And although Brad Pitt’s claims may set off alarms for some people, the condition is a real thing with an actual medical term – prosopagnosia. According to TMZ’s initial reporting of Pitt’s possible medical illness, the diagnosis falls on around 2 and a half percent of the population, the gravity of which is on a case-by-case basis. While it’s up in the air as to exactly how folks end up with face blindness, many think that it’s an illness that forms in the womb when a fetus simply doesn’t develop the same abilities that others with full facial recognition do. But when one sense doesn’t fully kick in, the others step up to the plate with those dealing with this problem by identifying their loved ones and peers by the sound of their voices, the jingling of their keys, and even their footsteps.
As you can imagine, throughout his decades-long career in Hollywood, Brad Pitt has faced a lot of backlash because of his inability to recognize people. No one likes feeling slighted, least of all big-time producers, fellow actors, and (we imagine especially) family members. This is something that Pitt absolutely recognizes and as he told Esquire almost ten years ago in 2013, “So many people hate me because they think I’m disrespecting them.” While “hate” is a strong word, we imagine that if you were constantly introducing yourself to a friend, colleague, or FAMILY MEMBER, those people in your life would probably be really annoyed too. But we digress as this is a real illness and it’s totally possible that Pitt has it, although, again, it’s a self-diagnosis.
Maybe the face blindness is also playing a part in the actor’s recent announcement that he plans to leave the world of acting behind for good sometime in the near future. In a recent GQ interview, Brad Pitt revealed that he sees himself heading into what he considers to be the “last semester or trimester” of his time on the silver screen. He’s had a long and illustrious career since landing his breakout role in 1991’s Thelma & Louise and has appeared in a slew of films since including the previously mentioned Fight Club, World War Z, Troy, Inglorious Bastards, and more recently, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood and The Lost City. Next, the multi-genre actor will be seen in the assassin-based action-adventure flick, Bullet Train.
While face blindness affects 2 and a half percent of the population, it’s a real bummer for it to afflict the life of someone so incredibly famous. On one hand, if it were something that was fixable, it wouldn’t be that big of a deal as Brad Pitt would have more than enough cash flow to undergo what would most certainly be a hefty-priced surgery, but as of right now, there is no correction for the condition. Sadly, those close to the actor will just need to keep announcing their presence day in and day out to make sure he knows who they are.
