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Justin Timberlake Shares Lyme Disease Diagnosis
Justin Timberlake is holding a mirror up to a misunderstood illness.
On July 31, the “Can’t Stop the Feeling” singer shared that he has been diagnosed with Lyme disease, admitting that his world tour was made difficult by his ongoing health issues.
“I don’t say [this] so you feel bad for me but to shed some light on what I’ve been up against behind the scenes,” the 44-year-old shared in a vulnerable Instagram post. “If you’ve experienced this disease or know someone who has—then you’re aware: living with this can be relentlessly debilitating, both mentally and physically.”
And while the *NSYNC alum—who shares kids Silas, 10, and Phineas, 4, with wife Jessica Biel—said he was initially “shocked” by the diagnosis, it ended up making a lot of sense.
“At least I could understand why I would be onstage,” Timberlake explained, “and in a massive amount of nerve pain or, just feeling crazy fatigue or sickness.”
Though the symptoms vary, according to the Center of Disease Control, the debilitating disease—caused by a tickborne infection—affects over 400,000 people, including celebs like Justin Bieber, Bella Hadid and Avril Lavigne.
Keep reading for everything to know about the condition…
What is Lyme disease?
Lyme disease starts as an infection from a blacklegged tick bite, but can progress if left untreated into a more serious chronic illness, per the CDC.
What are Lyme disease symptoms?
Initially, Lyme causes a rash, fever, chills and headaches.
However, if left untreated, the disease can sometimes evolve into chronic Lyme disease, which can cause fatigue, body aches, or difficulty thinking. Other later stage symptoms include facial droopiness, joint pain, nerve pain, dizziness or shortness of breath.
While the symptoms vary, many celebrities have shared that they are debilitating.
"I wasn't me anymore,” Tommy Hilfiger’s daughter Ally described of her side effects in her 2016 memoir Bite Me. “I was a weakly projected image of myself on a wall, crying out for someone to help me and figure out what was wrong.”
For Shania Twain, the diagnosis impacted her ability to sing. “My voice was never the same again,” Twain said in Shania Twain: Not Just A Girl in 2022, noting she got Lyme disease while horseback riding in 2003. “There were seven years where I could not, for example, yell out for my dog. My voice would just cut out in certain places.”
Photo by: Dana Edelson/NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal via Getty Images via Getty Images
How is Lyme disease diagnosed?
Lyme disease is difficult to diagnose once it has hit its chronic state. Indeed, Shania admitted that even doctors couldn’t determine the source of her vocal problems at first.
“It took another several years to determine what it was,” she described. “It wasn't anything obvious. Nobody connected the Lyme disease to it. In the end, a neurologist finally connected that it was the nerve to each vocal cord.”
However, doctors are able to determine if a patient has Lyme disease through blood tests several weeks after an infection has started by searching for Lyme antibodies.
How do you treat Lyme disease?
Initial Lyme disease infections can be treated by antibiotics. After Lyme disease becomes chronic, flare ups can arise from stress or pushing your body too hard, according to Global Lyme Alliance, which recommends monitoring symptoms daily to adjust behavior based on how you feel to keep symptoms at bay.
What celebrities have been diagnosed with Lyme disease?
In addition to Justin Timberlake, stars that have opened up on Lyme disease include Anwar Hadid, Yolanda Hadid, Riley Keough, Amy Schumer, Avril Lavigne, Alexis Ohanian, Ryan Sutter and Ben Stiller.
Back in 2020, Justin Bieber detailed his own health while slamming criticism about his appearance.
“I’ve recently been diagnosed with Lyme disease,” Bieber wrote at the time. “Not only that but a case of chronic mono which affected my skin, brain function, energy and overall health.”
Meanwhile, Bella Hadid admitted that she had “15 years of invisible suffering” amid her battle with chronic Lyme disease.
“Living in this state, worsening with time and work while trying to make myself, my family and the people who support me, proud, had taken a toll on me in ways I can’t really explain,” the model wrote in a 2023 Instagram post. “The universe works in the most painful and beautiful ways but I need to say that if you are struggling—it will get better.”
Alec Baldwin, for his part, described it as one of the scariest periods of his life. “I really thought this is it, I’m not going to live,” he shared at LymeAid, the Bay Area Lyme Foundation’s gala, in 2017. “I was lying in bed saying, ‘I’m going to die of Lyme disease’ in my bed and ‘I hope someone finds me and I’m not here for too long.’”
Kelly Osbourne was also diagnosed with the disease after being bitten by a tick that came from a reindeer. For more than a decade, Kelly suffered from “traveling pain,” she wrote in her 2017 memoir, a sore throat and stomachaches.
Lyme disease is just one illness celebrities have opened up about, keep reading for more stars who have shared insight into private health struggles..
Jason LaVeris/WireImage
Lupita Nyong'o's Uterine Fibroids
The 12 Years a Slave star was diagnosed with uterine fibroids—non-cancerous growths that develop in or around the uterus—in 2014, the same year she won an Oscar for performance in the movie.
However, it wasn't until 2025 when she disclosed her diagnosis, writing on Instagram that she had been "suffering in silence" for more than a decade.
"When we reach puberty, we're taught periods mean pain, and that pain is simply part of being a woman," she shared. "We're struggling alone with something that affects us most."
Instagram/Suki Waterhouse
Suki Waterhouse's Hernia
In July 2025, the Daisy Jones & The Six star shared that she had been hospitalized due to a hernia—a gap in the muscular wall that's commonly found in the abdomen or groin area—caused by wearing tight pants.
"'Suki you never tweet anymore,'" she wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter. "Have you ever considered I wore pants so tight 6 months ago it caused a hernia & I’ve been too scared to tell you?"
Paul Zimmerman/Shutterstock
Brian Austin Green's Perforated Appendix
The Beverly Hills, 90210 alum revealed in April 2025 that he was recovering from surgery after his appendix nearly burst.
“Last week, I started feeling some pain in my stomach,” Brian said in an Instagram video at the time. “I ended up going to the emergency room, and I had a perforated appendix. Not quite burst, but just before.”
He added, “I'm on the road to recovery. It's not an easy process. This is my first major surgery.”
Chris Haston/WBTV via Getty Images
Adam Devine's Long-Term Injury From Childhood Accident
Adam Devine shared that injuries he sustained after getting hit by a cement truck when he was 11 years old are still affecting him to this day.
“It’s been a nightmare,” Devine said in a 2025 episode of the In Depth With Graham Bensinger podcast. “I have spasms all over. For a while, [the doctors] told me I was dying—literally, within this last year.”
He noted that pain comes and goes, adding, "My body has all these things that are a little wonky and a little wrong with it."
Photo by David Becker/Getty Images
Jason Tartick's Back Injury
The Bachelor Nation alum shared that he went to the hospital “crawling on all fours” due to overwhelming back pain that was aggravated during an RV trip with a friend.
“Right now, knees to my toes, it’s, like, still tingly, which is crazy,” he said on a March 2025 episode of his Trading Secrets podcast. “And to put in perspective, I don’t know, man, like not to sound douchey, but like two, three weeks ago, maybe a month ago, I was squatting probably like 295 pounds. And right now, I can’t do a squat on my foot. I can’t do a one legged squat, I fall. It’s like I had a stroke or something.”
But with the help of a back specialist and some steroids, he added, “We’re on the mend.”
Matt Kirschenheiter's Heart Attack
Real Housewives of Orange County’s Gina Kirschenheiter shared her ex-husband Matt Kirschenheiter suffered a heart attack in March 2025, but thankfully survived the ordeal.
Todd Owyoung/NBC via Getty Images
Tracy Morgan's Medical Emergency
The 30 Rock star suffered a health scare at a New York Knicks basketball game in March 2025, leading to him being wheeled out of Madison Square Garden.
However, the comedian shared an update on social media the following day, noting it was a case of food poisoning and that he was on the mend.
Instagram / Christy Carlson Romano
Christy Carlson Romano's Eye Injury
The Even Stevens alum shared in February 2025 that she was shot in the face while on a trip to shoot clay pigeons to celebrate husband Brendan Rooney's birthday.
"There was another party with us and they unsafely fired in the wrong direction and shot me in the face," she wrote on Instagram. "@thebrendanrooney immediately sprung into action, assessed me, and rushed me to the hospital. I was hit in 5 places, one was less than an inch from hitting me directly in my right eye."
The Kim Possible alum continued, "Unfortunately a fragment got lodged behind my eye and it is too risky to remove surgically at this time. Doctors will continue to monitor me (I can see normally at the moment)."
The actress said she was grateful to be alive. "I love my daughters, husband, family, and friends so much," she said. "I saw my life flash before my eyes and I’m telling you, hug the people around you every chance you can. Life can change in an instant."
Todd Owyoung/NBC via Getty Images
Amy Schumer’s Cushing Syndrome
While the internet isn't always a kind place, Amy Schumer is happy that, in this case, it helped her get answers.
"The internet really came for me after doing a bunch of press, and I was like, 'OK everybody, relax,'" Amy recalled of her "puffier" face on a January 2025 episode of Call Her Daddy. "But then doctors were chiming in in the comments and they were like, 'No no, we think something’s really up. Your face looks so crazy that we think something’s up. And I’m like, ‘Wait, I’m getting trolled by doctors?’"
After these doctors said they thought she had Cushing syndrome and that it may be caused by spiking coritsol levels or steroid injections, the Life & Beth creator thought, "Wait, I have been getting steroid injections in my scars."
"I had a breast reduction, a C-section, whatever, and so I was getting these steroid injections," Amy said. "So it gave me this thing called Cushing syndrome, which I wouldn’t have known if the internet hadn’t come for me so hard."
Toda, Amy is just relieved she's OK. As she shared in a February 2024 News Not Noise newsletter, "Finding out I have the kind of Cushing that will just work itself out and I'm healthy was the greatest news imaginable."
Dave Sandford/NHLI via Getty Images
Casey Fitzgerald's Neck Injury From Hockey Skate Blade
The AHL player was cut by a fellow player's skate during a game in December 2024 and received 25 stitches. His father, New Jersey Devils general manager Tom Fitzgerald later told ESPN after his son was fully recovered, "We're very lucky. I don't wish that on any parent."
Hailey Bieber's Blood Clot
Hailey Bieber had the "scariest moment" of her life when she was having breakfast with husband Justin Bieber and started experiencing stroke-like symptoms in March 2022.
"Justin was like, 'Are you OK?'" the Rhode skincare mogul shared a month later on YouTube, "and I just didn't respond because I wasn't sure. And then he asked me again and when I went to respond, I couldn't speak. The right side of my face started drooping. I couldn't get a sentence out."
While Hailey said the facial drooping stopped and her speech came back, she went to the hospital to make sure she was OK.
"They did some scans and they were able to see that I had suffered a small blood clot to my brain," the model added, "which they labeled and categorized as something called a TIA [Transient Ischemic Attack]."
Later, Hailey went to the University of California, Los Angeles, where she found out she had a hole in her heart called a patent foramen ovale (PFO).
She explained the blood clot had traveled into her heart, "escaped" through the hole and went to her brain, leading to the TIA.
Hailey said she had a successful PFO closure procedure and was now feeling great.
Instagram / Justin Bieber
Justin Bieber's Ramsay Hunt Syndrome
The same year Hailey had her health scare, Justin experienced one of his own.
In June 2022, the "Baby" singer shared he was diagnosed with Ramsay Hunt syndrome, a condition that caused temporary paralysis to parts of his face and forced him to cancel the remainder of his Justice World Tour.
"It is from this virus that attacks the nerve in my ear and my facial nerves and has caused my face to have paralysis," Justin explained in an Instagram video at the time. "As you can see, this eye is not blinking. I can't smile on this side of my face. This nostril will not move. So, there's full paralysis on this side of my face."
In fact, he told his followers it had gotten "progressively harder to eat." But after a while, the paralysis went away.
"He's doing really well," Hailey said on a June 2022 episode of Good Morning America, later adding, "He's feeling a lot better. Obviously, it was just a very scary and random situation to happen, but he's going to be totally OK and I'm just grateful that he's fine."
Joe Maher/Getty Images
Jamie Foxx's Brain Bleed & Stroke
While Jamie Foxx initially kept details of his April 2023 hospitalization private, he later opened up about what he went through.
One day in Atlanta, "I was having such a bad headache, so I asked my boy, I said, ‘Listen, I need an aspirin,’” the Oscar winner said in his 2024 Netflix special What Had Happened Was... “Before I could get the Aspirin, I went out. I don’t remember 20 days.”
Jamie said he was initially taken to a doctor who gave him a cortisone shot and then sent him home. However, his concerned sister Deidra Dixon then drove him to a hospital, where they got an answer: He had a brain bleed that led to a stroke.
Twenty days after undergoing an operation, the Django Unchained woke up May 4 in a wheelchair and couldn’t walk. He then went to Chicago for rehabilitation and therapy.
"All I can tell you is that I appreciate every prayer,” he said, “because I needed every prayer.”
ANGELA WEISS/AFP via Getty Images
Emilia Clarke's Brain Aneurysm
Emilia Clarke filmed battle scenes for Game of Thrones, but in 2019, she published an essay in The New Yorker titled "A Battle for My Life."
Having a bad headache at the gym, "I reached the toilet, sank to my knees, and proceeded to be violently, voluminously ill," the actress wrote. "Meanwhile, the pain—shooting, stabbing, constricting pain—was getting worse. At some level, I knew what was happening: my brain was damaged."
She was taken to the hospital for a brain scan.
"The diagnosis was quick and ominous: a subarachnoid hemorrhage (SAH), a life-threatening type of stroke, caused by bleeding into the space surrounding the brain," the Emmy nominee added. "I’d had an aneurysm, an arterial rupture."
Emilia had immediate surgery to seal the aneurysm, calling the pain "unbearable." While she was recovering, she continued, she experienced aphasia and was "muttering nonsense."
A week later, "the aphasia passed," Emilia added, and she left the hospital a month after being admitted.
At a 2013 brain scan, she learned a growth "doubled in size" and that she needed surgery again.
"When they woke me, I was screaming in pain," she wrote. "The procedure had failed. I had a massive bleed and the doctors made it plain that my chances of surviving were precarious if they didn’t operate again. This time they needed to access my brain in the old-fashioned way—through my skull."
Thankfully, Emilia shared, she's now "at a hundred per cent."
Chris Haston/WBTV via Getty Images
Cori Broadus's Stroke
Snoop Dogg's daughter Cori Broadus is grateful for her family.
Because after she suffered a "severe stroke" in January 2024, her loved ones rushed to be by her side.
"I texted them that I just had a stroke and sent them a picture," she told E! News correspondent Will Marfuggi in December 2024. "Everybody just came to my rescue."
Because of other medical concerns, Cori ended up staying in the hospital longer than she initially expected. Today, Cori is on the mend. "I'm doing great," she added. "I just had a little bit of motor skills that I had to work back on. But other than that, I was fine."
"I could have went home after my stroke, but my lupus wasn't doing so well," the Snoop's Fatherhood: Cori and Wayne's Story star continued. "My kidneys were failing. It was a lot going on."
Jon Kopaloff/Getty Images for Vanity Fair
Shailene Woodley's Health Battle
Shailene Woodley’s early 20s were not an easy time health-wise.
“It got to the point where I was losing my hearing. I couldn’t walk for longer than five minutes at a time without having to lay down for hours, and hours and sleep. Everything I ate hurt my stomach,” the actress said on a September 2024 episode of the SHE MD Podcast. “It was this conflation of issues and diagnoses and different doctors telling me different things.”
So Shailene—who chose to keep the exact condition private—set out to find answers.
“I come from a very holistic background and study herbalism,” she added. “So I was very keen on, ‘I’m going to work with real MDs, [and] I’m also going to work with independent kind of healers.’ Just trying to search for some sense of comfort in my own skin.”
It was a long journey—one that lasted for 10 years.
“Throughout that decade, a lot of other things came from feeling so much discomfort physically,” the Big Little Lies star noted, “which was, ‘My gosh, if everything I eat hurts my stomach, I’m now suddenly afraid of food.’ And then going into the kind of mental f--ckery that can happen with that of body dysmorphia and confusion about identity and feeling safe in my own capsule, in my own skin, what that meant, and what that should be.”
After tending to both her physical and mental health, Shailene is feeling much better.
“It was a journey that ultimately physically resolved itself, and I am very healthy,” she shared. “I’m so happy to be able to say that."
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