DEBILITATING
The actor said it took him almost five years to recover from an undiagnosed condition.
By Pia Bello
Brian Austin Green, 53, revealed the devastating effect of a medical condition he had over 10 years ago.
In an August 26 episode of psychotherapist Kara Mayer Robinson’s Really Famous podcast, the Beverly Hills, 90210 alum shared that the condition he struggled with “was never completely diagnosed.”
Green did not disclose the specifics of the neurological disorder, but said he experienced “stroke-like symptoms” that affected his ability to read, write, speak, and walk when he was around “39, 40” years old (between 2012 and 2013).
“I had internal inflammation, so from diet. They think [it’s] just emotional stress, not handling things well,” he told Robinson.
The ‘90s heartthrob said it took him about four and a half years to recover from the illness, noting, “I had to learn how to walk again, to talk again. I had to learn how to sort of do everything again.”
“Who I was, essentially, was no more. My brain and my body completely disconnected.”
Green admitted that his symptoms were so severe that he was afraid of losing his acting talents, and even considered “reinventing” himself.
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He credits his recovery to intensive therapy sessions, and realized that “the emotions that [he had] been living with since [he] was a kid were a big factor in what was going on.”
“I genuinely knew I was just sort of living in a state of constant fight or flight,” Green said, explaining that therapy made him “focused on recovering and finding a better version of me.”
The 90210 star first publicly discussed his severe mobility issues and stroke-like symptoms in October 2023, during an appearance on Emmy-nominated dancer Cheryl Burke’s Sex Lies and Spray Tans podcast.
At the time, he said that doctors told him he suffered from a combination of vertigo, ulcerative colitis, and severe neurological inflammation, which forced him to be bedridden for three months.
“These neurological things started happening after the vertigo, and it was four and a half years of my life. I got to a point where I shuffled like I was a 90-year-old man,” he told Burke in 2023.
Green was married to fellow actor Megan Fox during his debilitating health struggles. They met in 2004 on the set of the television show Hope & Faith and got engaged in 2006. The former couple wed in a private ceremony at the Four Seasons resort in Hawaii in 2010, but filed for divorce in November 2020 after separating earlier that year.
In December 2014, Green and his then-wife got in a minor collision after a drunk driver sideswiped their Range Rover in Los Angeles, but he said his neurological symptoms were unrelated to the incident.
Green and Fox share three children: Noah, 13; Bodhi, 12; and Journey, 10. Since their divorce, they have maintained a cordial co-parenting dynamic, even after entering respective romantic relationships. Fox reportedly feels “fortunate” about their dynamic.
Green began dating dancer Sharna Burgess in October 2020 after their mutual business manager set them up on a blind date. The couple got engaged in July 2023 and share one child, Zane, born in June 2022.
Fox, meanwhile, began dating rapper Machine Gun Kelly in mid-2020, and the pair became engaged in 2022. They have since separated, but co-parent their daughter, Saga, born in March 2025.
