Jan. 3, 2026, 11:26 a.m. ET
Evangeline Lilly said she is starting the new year with a health scare, an uphill battle and plenty of rest.
The “Ant-Man and the Wasp” star revealed she has brain damage after an accident in Hawaii, where she fainted and landed face-first on a boulder.
“Verdict’s in… I do have brain damage from my (traumatic brain injury). Comforting to know my cognitive decline isn’t just peri-menopause, discomforting to know what an uphill battle it will be to try to reverse the deficiencies,” she wrote on Instagram Jan. 2.
In a video recorded on Jan. 1, the “Lost” actress said brain scans confirmed “almost every area in my brain is functioning at a decreased capacity.”
“But now my job is to hit 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 added.
Evangeline Lilly has suffered from blackouts since childhood
Though her injury in Hawaii was traumatic, it was not surprising for the Canadian author who has suffered from “‘absent’ and fainting spells since I was a little girl,” Lilly wrote on a May 30 Substack essay.
Doctors examined her for epilepsy when she was younger and, without any testing, diagnosed her with hypoglycemia, according to Lilly.
“For a good chunk of my life, I went with that – hypoglycemia,” she wrote. “But, as I got older, and other health issues started to enter the picture, my doctor started doing a LOT of blood work. What was interesting was how, even after a 12-hour fast, even after blacking out, my glucose levels never came back as low. Hypoglycemia, it seemed, was being ruled out.”
Lilly said her blackout episodes were never fully explained, adding that she’s had to make peace without knowing the root of them. Her husband, Norman Kali, told her she looks like she has died during the episodes.
After doctors confirmed she has a cognitive decline since smashing her face open, Lilly said she has slowed down and had a restful finish to her 2025.
“I think this was the calmest, most restful Christmas holiday I have had, maybe since I had children. So 14 years ago. So that’s a good thing,” she said. “Feeling extraordinarily grateful and blessed to be able to play one more day, one more year on this beautiful living planet. And that is my concussion updates. Thank you all for caring.”
