Evangeline Lilly Opens Up About Brain Damage After Hawaii Accident: “Almost Every Area in My Brain Is Affected”
Evangeline Lilly has shared a serious update about her health following a traumatic accident in Hawaii earlier this year.
The actress, known for her roles in Lost and Ant-Man and the Wasp, fainted on a beach in May and hit her head on a boulder. The fall resulted in a traumatic brain injury, which Lilly confirmed in an Instagram video on January 1.
“It’s late on January 1, the first day of 2026, and I’m entering into this new year, the year of the horse with some bad news about my concussion,” Lilly said.
She explained that brain scans showed “almost every area in my brain is functioning at a decreased capacity.” She added that it is now her responsibility to work with doctors and commit to recovery. “Now my job is to get to the bottom of that with the doctors and then embark on the hard work of fixing it, which I don’t look forward to, because I feel like hard work is all I do. But that’s okay,” she said.
Lilly also noted that the accident has forced her to slow down. “My cognitive decline since I smashed my face open has helped me to slow down and helped me to have a more restful finish to my 2025,” she said, adding that her Christmas holidays were the calmest she’s had in years. She closed her update with a message of gratitude:
“Feeling extraordinarily grateful and blessed to be able to play one more day and one more year on this beautiful living planet. And that is my concussion update. Thank you all for caring.”
The actress first discussed the accident in a Substack post in May. She described fainting and falling face-first onto a boulder. “At the hospital, the nurses and doctor went straight into action, more determined to find the cause of my blackout than to stitch up the hole punctured into my face by the rock. I smiled wryly at them. ‘You won’t find anything,’ I said with a woozy voice,” she wrote.
Lilly shared that she has experienced fainting spells since childhood, though doctors have not identified a clear cause. She believes these episodes are her body’s way of “checking out” when it reaches its limit. “I have come to believe that this ‘checking out’ is a result of my little soul reaching her limit of what she feels she can cope with in this life, and she ‘leaves the building,’ so to speak. Or ‘leaves the meat suit’ might be a better way of putting it,” she said.
Lilly’s update sheds light on the challenges of living with a brain injury while maintaining a career in Hollywood. Her honesty about her recovery and the need to slow down offers fans an important reminder about health and self-care.
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