Brad Pitt Going Blind? Angelina Jolie's Ex-Husband Diagnosed Self With Rare Disease
Brad Pitt claimed he is "going blind" due to his self-diagnosed health issue.
The Hollywood heartthrob is reportedly going through a tough time after revealing to GQ that he "thinks" he has prosopagnosia. The "face-blindness" causes him to have difficulties remembering people he meets at social parties.
He disclosed that he has been having a hard time recognizing people. With that, he feels worried that his "disorder" might cause people to see him as an "aloof, inaccessible, self-absorbed" person.
The "Ad Astra" actor also told the same thing in his interview with Esquire in 2013.
"So many people hate me because they think I'm disrespecting them. Every now and then, someone will give me context, and I'll say, 'Thank you for helping me.' But I piss more people off," he said.
Pitt added that the disease is a mystery to him. Although he told the magazine that he was going to get it tested, he never received an official diagnosis that he has the disorder.
However, Carnegie Mellon University invited him to have his brain imaged and examined by neuroscientist Marlene Behrmann. CNN confirmed the invitation, but it was never reported if the actor visited the facility.
What Is Prosopagnosia?
According to the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS), Pitt's alleged disorder is a neurological issue characterized by a person's inability to recognize faces. The symptoms vary depending on the degree of impairment, but it can lead to social anxiety disorder and depression.
Brad Duchaine, Ph.D., professor of psychological and brain sciences at Dartmouth College, clarified to TODAY that the rare disorder has no direct connection to memory loss, visual impairments, and intelligence, among others.
"We define it as trouble with recognizing facial identity in the absence of low-level vision problems or higher-level cognitive problems," he said. "There's a network of regions called face-selective areas ... that respond very strongly when faces are shown to people and show little or no response to other categories."
The revelation came at the same time as when Pitt revealed that he is eyeing the end of his career. According to Angelina Jolie's ex-husband, he now thinks he is on the last leg of his life in the acting industry.
But Pitt will still star in the film "Bullet Train," in which he plays the role of an assassin inside a train from Tokyo to Kyoto. It will premiere on August 5.
