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These nine actors saw their careers change dramatically after serious health diagnoses.
There’s never a good time to receive bad news about your health. But for people in the public eye, a major diagnosis comes with its own set of complications. Rumors and tabloid speculation can run rampant, paparazzi may follow their every move, and onlookers — fans and otherwise — can make judgments based on little more than appearances.
Sometimes, an actor can step away from Hollywood without much fanfare, as Rick Moranis did after his wife died of cancer. But for most, a serious health crisis is difficult to hide.
In recent years, actors have spoken more openly about their diagnoses than would have been common in earlier Hollywood eras. That openness has helped destigmatize illness, raise awareness, and encourage research. Sometimes they’ve even done so in the face of opposition — like Selma Blair, who has said some people urged her not to go public with her multiple sclerosis (MS) diagnosis.
Below, Entertainment Weekly looks at nine beloved stars who stepped out of the spotlight after being diagnosed with serious illnesses.
01 of 09
Christina Applegate
Christina Applegate has been part of the collective American consciousness for decades, beginning with her star-making role as Kelly Bundy on Married... with Children, which became a syndication staple. She followed it up by headlining her own sitcom, Jesse, earning a Golden Globe nomination for her performance.
Her film career took off with the cult classic Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead (1991) and she later achieved pop culture immortality alongside Will Ferrell in Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy (2004). Her decades-long run as a comedy mainstay — which included an Emmy-winning guest appearance as Rachel's sister on Friends — continued with films like The Sweetest Thing (2002), Hall Pass (2011), and Bad Moms (2016).
But in the midst of that success came her first major health crisis: a breast cancer diagnosis in 2008 that led to a double mastectomy. More than a decade later, after earning widespread acclaim for Netflix's Dead to Me, Applegate revealed that she had been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. She has since said the series will likely be her final onscreen acting role, as the disease has profoundly affected her daily life.
Applegate now cohosts the MeSsy podcast with The Sopranos star Jamie-Lynn Sigler, who also lives with MS, where they get into the nitty gritty of the disease.
In 2026, Applegate revealed that she had been hospitalized more than 30 times since her diagnosis because of complications related to her illness. She remains an outspoken advocate for people living with multiple sclerosis.
Applegate began a podcast with Sopranos star Jamie Lynn Sigler, who also has MS, where they get into the nitty gritty of the disease. Applegate has reportedly been hospitalized a number of times in 2026 as she mediates the illness’ effects on her body.
02 of 09
Selma Blair
Few can forget Selma Blair's breakout role in 1999's Cruel Intentions, which launched a career filled with distinctive characters that have only grown more beloved with time. (We're looking at you, Vivian from Legally Blonde.)
After a dark turn in Todd Solondz's Storytelling (2001), Blair entered superhero territory as the tormented love interest of the eponymous hero in Hellboy (2004) and its 2008 sequel.
But in 2018, the veteran actress, then 46, revealed that complications from multiple sclerosis were affecting her body and mind to such a degree that she would have to step back from her screen career. Blair has spoken candidly about the cognitive symptoms and brain lesions caused by MS, as well as the disease's profound impact on her daily life.
In the years since, she has become a prominent advocate for chronic illness awareness. She briefly returned to the spotlight in 2022 as a contestant on the 31st season of Dancing With the Stars, but withdrew from the competition before being eliminated because of her illness.
03 of 09
Tim Curry
Tim Curry is one of a kind. His signature role will probably always be Frank-N-Furter in The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975), a performance he first originated onstage before bringing it to the cult classic to end all cult classics.
But he went on to make so many characters his own — from Pennywise the Clown in Stephen King's IT miniseries to Long John Silver in Muppet Treasure Island (1996) to the Lord of Darkness himself in Legend (1985). And that’s to say nothing of Clue (1985), The Hunt for Red October (1990), and The Three Musketeers 1993).
Suffice it to say, he’s done practically everything, and his devoted following has been passed down from one generation to the next.
His career came to a sudden halt in 2012, however, when he suffered a stroke so severe it required surgery. The stroke affected his speech and his ability to walk, and he now uses a wheelchair. Curry has largely stepped away from onscreen acting, though he continues to take on occasional voice roles and public appearances.
Still, the actor who made Frank-N-Furter one of the most iconic characters in movie history has made exceptions for new Rocky Horror incarnations. He narrated Fox's live television presentation in 2016, with Laverne Cox playing his old role. He also voiced the character during a 2020 table read that raised money for the Democratic Party of Wisconsin.
04 of 09
Michael J. Fox
Michael J. Fox was one of the most familiar faces of the 1980s. He shot to fame as Alex P. Keaton on Family Ties, the seven-season hit that earned him three consecutive Emmy Awards. In the midst of that success came movie stardom, most notably with the generation-defining Back to the Future (1985). He also starred in Teen Wolf (1985), The Secret of My Success (1987), and Brian De Palma's Casualties of War (1989).
With his wholesome charm and easygoing charisma, Fox was almost universally beloved both on and offscreen. As the '90s progressed, he appeared on the big screen in The American President (1995) and Peter Jackson's The Frighteners (1996), while also landing another successful starring sitcom role in Spin City.
But in 1998, he announced to the world that he had been diagnosed with Parkinson's disease, an illness that was highly stigmatized at the time. He became an advocate for those with Parkinson's, speaking openly about its symptoms and the search for better treatments even as the disease's gradual physical toll made it harder and harder to do so.
The actor took a long hiatus from acting and founded the Michael J. Fox Foundation in 2000, which supports Parkinson's research and the development of new treatments, with the ultimate goal of finding a cure.
Even after stepping back from acting, Fox has continued to make occasional appearances onscreen. He had a recurring role on The Good Wife and even starred in another sitcom, The Michael J. Fox Show, though it lasted only one season. He also appeared on Designated Survivor and Curb Your Enthusiasm.
The Canadian-American actor recently returned for a guest-starring role on Shrinking, earning an Emmy nomination for his performance.
05 of 09
Michael Gambon
Sir Michael Gambon began his career on the Shakespearean stage in the 1960s before leaving a permanent mark on film.
Of course, fans around the world know him as Albus Dumbledore in the final six Harry Potter films. But his résumé stretched far beyond Hogwarts, from The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover (1989) and Gosford Park (2001) to The King's Speech (2010).
Gambon left the industry gradually. The Irish actor retired from the stage in 2015 because memory problems made it increasingly difficult for him to remember his lines. During his final performances, someone fed him dialogue through an earpiece.
He continued acting onscreen until 2019, when his memory issues worsened to the point that even the controlled environment of a film set could no longer compensate for the difficulty he had remembering his lines.
His final screen role came in Adrian Shergold's Cordelia (2019). Gambon died in 2023 at the age of 82.
06 of 09
Melanie Griffith
Some actors have been extremely public about their exits from the industry due to illness. Others, like Melanie Griffith, have done their best to keep their diagnoses under wraps — that is, until they couldn’t anymore.
Griffith has been Hollywood royalty since birth, as the daughter of Tippi Hedren, one of Alfred Hitchcock’s muses and the star of The Birds (1963). As a result, Griffith has been in the public eye since she was a child. She began carving out her own screen career in the ’70s and broke through with a scene-stealing part in Body Double (1984) and a star-making role in Something Wild (1986).
Her Oscar-nominated turn as the unforgettable overachiever Tess McGill in Mike Nichols’ Working Girl (1988) made her an immortal rom-com icon, and she went on to star in Pacific Heights (1990), Born Yesterday (1993), and Another Day in Paradise (1998), among others.
In 2017, Griffith revealed she’d been diagnosed with epilepsy after suffering multiple stress-induced seizures that led to repeated hospitalizations. The actress hasn’t officially retired, but she hasn’t had a major screen role since The Pirates of Somalia (2017). Since then, she has had cameos in The Disaster Artist (2017), her daughter Dakota Johnson’s The High Note (2020), and an episode of SMILF.
07 of 09
Val Kilmer
Losing one’s voice can be a particularly brutal experience for an actor. For movie legend Val Kilmer, it was throat cancer that stole his ability to speak in 2015, largely bringing his acting career to a close.
Kilmer had been a Hollywood staple since the 1980s, with his comedies Top Secret! (1984) and Real Genius (1985) opening doors that led him to both action stardom — Top Gun (1986), Willow (1988), Tombstone (1993) — and dramatic work like Thunderheart (1992) and Heat (1995).
His turn as Jim Morrison in Oliver Stone’s The Doors (1991) remains iconic, as does his uncredited cameo as Elvis in Tony Scott’s True Romance (1993). Hell, he even got to be Batman. While the actor was plagued with accusations that he was difficult to work with — a characterization Kilmer himself occasionally agreed with in the documentary Val (2021) — his body of work speaks for itself, both in terms of its range and his commitment to a wide variety of roles.
In 2020, he published the memoir I’m Your Huckleberry. The following year, he worked with an AI company to recreate his voice. That technology helped make possible his final triumphant screen moment, reprising Iceman in a poignant scene in Top Gun: Maverick (2022).
Kilmer died of complications from pneumonia in 2025.
08 of 09
Rick Moranis
Rick Moranis was one of the go-to comedy actors of his generation. Even before he starred in blockbuster franchises like Ghostbusters (1984) and Honey, I Shrunk the Kids (1989), he was beloved for his work on SCTV and the cult comedy Strange Brew (1983).
The Canadian actor’s heyday also included such popular hits as Little Shop of Horrors (1986), Spaceballs (1987), and Parenthood (1989). He even went prehistoric for The Flintstones (1994) as Barney Rubble himself.
And then, poof. He disappeared. Though he largely kept his private life out of the headlines, his wife, Ann Belsky, was diagnosed with cancer and died in 1991. Within a few years, Moranis essentially retired from the industry and the public eye in general — mainly, as he has discussed, in order to focus on raising their two children.
“I'm a single parent, and I just found that it was too difficult to manage raising my kids and doing the traveling involved in making movies,” he told USA Today in 2005. “So I took a little bit of a break. And the little bit of a break turned into a longer break, and then I found that I really didn’t miss it.”
While he did some smaller acting jobs, like voicing Rutt in Brother Bear (2003), he’s stayed out of the limelight. But for those who missed his distinctive comic presence, good news — Moranis is officially coming back as Dark Helmet in the upcoming Spaceballs: The New One (2027), his first live-action film role in more than 30 years.
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09 of 09
Bruce Willis
Bruce Willis, in many ways, defined the action-movie star of the late 20th and early 21st centuries.
After becoming a small-screen star with his Emmy-winning performance on Moonlighting, he leveled up with Die Hard (1988), launching a franchise that lasted 25 years. Aside from his action vehicles, he flexed his acting muscles in Pulp Fiction (1994), 12 Monkeys (1995), The Sixth Sense (1999), and Unbreakable (2000), among many others.
In his heyday, he even picked up another Emmy for his guest appearance on Friends in 2000.
Later in his career, on the heels of acclaimed work in Moonrise Kingdom (2012) and Looper (2012), he settled into a curious pattern. In lieu of studio blockbusters, he starred in an avalanche of low-budget, direct-to-DVD, or direct-to-streaming movies, primarily genre films.
As cast and crew members who worked on those productions later detailed, Willis often had trouble remembering lines and was sometimes disoriented or unable to execute certain scenes, to the point of relying on doubles and having his lines reduced.
Finally, in 2022, Willis' family revealed that he had been diagnosed with aphasia, a language disorder that was later attributed to frontotemporal dementia. The big-screen icon officially retired from acting.
His wife Emma, their daughters, and his children with ex-wife Demi Moore have been publicly protective and supportive of Willis in the years since his health issues became public.
Read the original article on Entertainment Weekly
