13 TV Stars Reveal Their Harrowing COVID-19 Experiences
COVID-19 doesn’t care who has an Oscar or a massive fan following or the top spot on a TV show’s call sheet. Tom Hanks and wife Rita Wilson were the first celebrities to go public with a COVID-19 diagnosis, delivering the news in March. Countless more have been hit during this pandemic, some reporting being asymptomatic or experiencing mild symptoms — and others experiencing far worse.
The TV stars below all have scary coronavirus stories. Their accounts spotlight just how serious the disease is and how careful we all need to be, especially as we head into winter.
Ben Platt
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In a since-deleted November 15 tweet, Politician star Platt revealed he had recovered from COVID-19, per Deadline. “It was like an awful flu that lingered for 3 weeks or so,” he wrote in the post. “Thankfully, [I] made a full recovery. So many haven’t been as lucky and will continue not to be.”
Colton Underwood
On March 20, Underwood, the former Bachelor star, told Instagram followers he had tested positive. “It’s been kicking my ass, just to put it pretty bluntly,” he added, per Entertainment Weekly. “The main thing is I can’t even walk up a flight of stairs without being out of breath or go to the bathroom without having to sit down because I’m exhausted.”
Debi Mazar
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A day later, Younger star Mazur announced her COVID-19 diagnosis, saying she and her family had come down with fevers, aches, sore throats, and coughs about a month prior. Then, Mazar wrote on Instagram, two weeks after the family started feeling better, she “woke up with all those same symptoms but super-intense body aches and a 102.4 fever.”
Todd Chrisley
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The Chrisley Knows Best patriarch said his bout with COVID-19 was a “life-altering experience” for his whole family. “It has been the sickest that I have ever been in the 52 years I’ve been on this earth,” Chrisley added, opening up on April 18 episode of the Chrisley Confessions podcast.
Tony Shaloub
“I hope you are all being careful and following the protocol. We really are all Monk now,” cautioned the Marvelous Mrs. Maisel star and Monk alum on the May 11 episode of Peacock’s At-Home Variety Show. “Last month, my wife, Brooke [Adams], and I came down with the virus,” said Shaloub, “and it was a pretty rough few weeks. But we realize that so many other people have had it a lot worse.”
Anna Camp
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Perfect Harmony actress Camp begged her Instagram followers to wear masks in a July 21 post detailing her COVID-19 symptoms. “The panic of contracting a virus that is basically untreatable and is so new that no one knows the long term irreparable damage it does to your immune system is unbelievably stressful,” she wrote. “Completely losing my sense of smell and taste without knowing when or even if they will return is extremely disorienting. I’m only smelling about 30 percent of how I used to now. Other persistent symptoms are (a month later) dizziness, extreme fatigue, impacted sinuses, upset stomach, nausea, vomiting, and fever. I’m lucky. Because I didn’t die.”
Alyssa Milano
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On Instagram, Charmed alum Milano wrote on August 5 that she thought she was dying while in the throes of COVID-19. “I had never been this kind of sick,” she shared. “Everything hurt. Loss of smell. It felt like an elephant was sitting on my chest. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t keep food in me. I lost 9 pounds in 2 weeks. I was confused. Low-grade fever. And the headaches were horrible. I basically had every COVID symptom.”
Dwayne Johnson
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In an 11-minute Instagram video from September 2, this host of The Titan Games revealed that he and his family had all tested positive for the disease. “I can tell you that this has been one of the most challenging and difficult things we have ever had to endure as a family,” Johnson said. “And for me personally, too, as well, and I’ve gone through some doozies in the past.”
Jim Parsons
Hollywood actor and Big Bang Theory vet Parsons described his COVID-19 experience on the September 28 Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, saying he and his husband Todd Spiewak both came down with the virus. “We lost our sense of smell and taste, utterly,” he added. “It defied the descriptions for me. I didn’t realize how completely taste and smell could be gone.”
Khloe Kardashian
“I just found out that I do have corona,” said the reality star in a Keeping Up With the Kardashians preview that hit the web October 28. “It’s going to be fine, but it was really bad for a couple of days, vomiting and shaking, and hot and then cold. I suffer from migraine, but this was the craziest headache,” said Kardashian. “Let me tell you, that s—t is real.”
Richard Schiff & Sheila Kelley
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Schiff and Kelley, the married Good Doctor actors, announced their COVID-19 diagnoses November 10. “We’re quarantined in our home in Vancouver, recovering,” Kelley wrote on Instagram. “This virus is a slippery sucker. One minute you feel almost fine and the next you can’t catch your breath. Symptoms change radically daily even hourly.”
Hugh Grant
That same day, The Undoing‘s Grant revealed that he contracted COVID-19 earlier this year. “It started as just a very strange syndrome where I kept breaking into a terrible sweat. It was like a poncho of sweat — embarrassing, really,” he said on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert. “Then my eyeballs felt about three sizes too big and this feeling as though some enormous man was sitting on my chest. … I thought, ‘I don’t know what this is,’ and then I was walking down the street one day and I thought, ‘I can’t smell a damn thing,’ and you start to panic.”
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