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Months after revealing a painful accident that left her bloodied on a rocky beach, Evangeline Lilly has now shared a far more serious update about her health.
The actress disclosed that the fall resulted in lasting brain damage, adding another layer to a medical journey she has been openly documenting.
Lilly explained that new test results confirmed her fears, linking her ongoing symptoms to a traumatic brain injury.
The 46-year-old has previously spoken about fainting spells and unexplained blackouts dating back to childhood, and this latest diagnosis has pushed her back into conversations with doctors as she searches for answers.
In an Instagram post shared on Friday, Lilly addressed the outcome of her recent scans.
“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.
“Thank you all for always asking, for always caring, and for your continued prayers.” she added.
In a video posted alongside the message, the Hobbit actress said she was “entering into this new year, the year of the horse, with some bad news about my concussion.” She told followers that imaging showed “almost every area in [her] brain is functioning at a decreased capacity.”
“I do have brain damage from the TBI and possibly other factors going on,” Lilly said.
She added that her focus now 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.”
The Ant-Man and the Wasp star previously detailed the accident in a Substack essay after fainting on a beach in May. She also shared graphic images showing the aftermath of the fall.
“I fainted at the beach. And fell face first into a boulder,” she wrote at the time, alongside photos of her bruised and lacerated nose, mouth, and chin. The images also appeared to show that one of her front teeth had been dislodged.
Lilly recalled that she “blacked out again” while being transported to the hospital. Once there, she said the medical team “went straight into action” but focused more on identifying the cause of her collapse than treating her facial injuries.
“You won’t find anything,” she recounted telling them in a “woozy” voice.
In the same essay, Lilly explained that fainting episodes are not new for her.
“I have had ‘absent’ and fainting spells since I was a little girl,” she wrote. “The doctors checked me for epilepsy when I was young and then settled on the idea of hypoglycemia (without doing any testing).”
As she got older and developed other health issues, she began to feel that diagnosis no longer made sense. Eventually, she reached her own conclusion about what might be happening.
Ultimately, Lilly wrote that her “soul longs to return. That when she has had enough, when the pain becomes too great, the stresses beyond overwhelming, the shattered idealism crushing, [her] soul exits [her] body and returns to pure spirit.”
She also noted that her experience is not unique.
Lilly said she is “not the only person who has blackout episodes that are not explained.”
“The nurse who was tending [to] me in the hospital told me that most patients with this issue are never given a medical answer as to why they blackout [sic],” she wrote. “Not with heart monitors, glucose monitors nor blood tests. They just have to live in the mystery of not knowing.”
She described her own “unmedical” diagnosis as “a beautiful invitation” to consider that there may be “more to be felt in the not knowing.”
The Lost actress, who announced her retirement from acting in June 2024, continues to share updates as she navigates treatment and searches for clarity around her condition.
