Physical Health
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Lady Gaga & 5 Other Celebs Who’ve Opened Up About Having Fibromyalgia
Midlife women are more likely to get this painful chronic condition that impacts the muscles.
By Helen Carefoot
Lady Gaga at the 2025 iHeartRadio Music Awards held at the Dolby Theatre on March 17, 2025 in Los Angeles, California.
Michael Buckner/Billboard
Joint pain and aches become more common with age. But for people with fibromyalgia, a painful chronic condition that causes widespread bodily pain, that pain doesn’t go away.
The symptoms of fibromyalgia, which include fatigue, brain fog and widespread, constant pain, make daily life difficult. Often described as an invisible illness, it can isolate those who experience it, contributing to the stigma surrounding the condition.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), about four million U.S. adults have fibromyalgia, and it’s most common among midlife women: research finds that women are twice as likely as men to develop fibromyalgia.
Part of breaking that stigma is talking about what it’s like to have fibromyalgia. These celebs have shared their struggles with the condition and hopefully inspired others to share their own stories. Learn about six celebrities who’ve opened up about their journey with fibromyalgia.
Lady Gaga, 39
Lady Gaga at the 2025 iHeartRadio Music Awards held at the Dolby Theatre on March 17, 2025 in Los Angeles, California.
Photo : Michael Buckner/Billboard
Lady Gaga, 39, has been vocal about her struggle with fibromyalgia, which has impacted her musical career. The Grammy-winning singer and Academy Award-nominated actress, who has partnered with many organizations to raise awareness, revealed that pain from the condition caused her to cancel tour dates.
In a sweeping 2018 cover story for Vogue, Gaga discussed how people not thinking fibromyalgia is a real disease can be painful.
“I get so irritated with people who don’t believe fibromyalgia is real,” she said. “People need to be more compassionate. Chronic pain is no joke. And it’s every day, waking up, not knowing how you’re going to feel.”
Carrie Ann Inaba, 57
Carrie Ann Inaba: Kristina Bumphrey/Variety
Carrie Ann Inaba: Kristina Bumphrey/Variety
Carrie Ann Inaba, 57, opened up about her ordeal with fibromyalgia on a 2019 episode of The Talk, which she co-hosted. The longtime Dancing with the Stars judge was refreshingly honest about the shame sometimes associated with having an invisible illness.
“I have all these autoimmune conditions, and I’m in a really bad flare,” she said to her co-hosts. “I look healthy and I am really healthy—all things considered—but then, I have these incredible sharp pains. Like today, [the hairstylist] was doing my hair and he barely touched me, but I thought he burnt me with a curling iron because my body is in a fibromyalgia flare.”
According to Prevention, she went on to note that sometimes she felt ashamed that others couldn’t see her suffering. “It sounds so silly, but people who have these like invisible illnesses—whether it’s rheumatoid arthritis, or a gastrointestinal thing—I feel so much shame when I go through these things, because I want to be what people see. And people see a healthy person, from the outside,” she added.
Lena Dunham, 39
Lena Dunham at the Second Annual Academy Museum Gala held at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures on October 15, 2022 in Los Angeles, California.
: Gilbert Flores/Variety
Actress and writer Lena Dunham, 39, deals with a number of chronic conditions, endometriosis, anxiety and also fibromyalgia.
In a 2018 interview with The Cut, Dunham opened up about living with fibromyalgia and revealed that she took Lyrica, a medication for nerve pain, to manage it. She revealed that her illnesses had become worse as her hit show Girls was in its final seasons; she had nerve damage in her leg that required her to use a walker and was rushed to the hospital when she passed out at the Met Gala. Dunham was diagnosed with fibromyalgia in the summer of 2017.
“Physical pain is really isolating… I was lonely and medicated,” she told the outlet.
She also documented a flare-up in a now-deleted Instagram post in 2018, according to The Independent. She wrote that she had a fibromyalgia flare while watching now Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearing process, which included testimony from Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, who accused Kavanaugh of sexual misconduct. (He was neither charged or found liable for sexual assault.) According to the Mayo Clinic, symptoms frequently happen after a triggering event.
“On the day after Dr. Ford’s testimony, I awoke with a start at 3 a.m. It felt like every cell in my neck was singing. My ankles and wrists were weak, and my fingers didn’t do their assigned job. Yesterday, I felt like I was suspended in gel, and when I meditated a line of pain zipped from my neck to my foot,” wrote Dunham. “This is fibromyalgia. It’s little understood and so even though I have a lot of knowledge and support, it’s hard to shake the feeling I am crazy.”
Olivia Munn, 45
Olivia Munn at arrivals for The 96th Academy Awards – Arrivals 3, Dolby Theatre, Los Angeles, CA, March 10, 2024.
Photo : Elizabeth Goodenough / Everett Collection
Actress Olivia Munn, 45, told People that a team of doctors at UCLA diagnosed her with fibromyalgia in 2019. The diagnosis came after Munn had wondered for years if something was off.
“I wasn’t really sure what was going on with me. I was going through a lot of different ailments for years and not knowing what was happening,” Munn said in the 2021 interview.
Munn changed her wellness habits as a result of the diagnosis in an effort to minimize flares. “I had to change my wellness routine pretty significantly,” she told People. “I had to be super thoughtful about what I put into my body. I had to start eating gluten-free, dairy-free and sugar-free—I had to cut out a lot of things that I was used to having every day and things that I really loved.”
At the time, she said sticking to a workout routine, healthy diet and meditation routine keeps her condition under control.
Janeane Garofalo, 61
Janeane Garofalo attends A24’s “A Glimpse Inside the Mind of Charles Swan III” screening at Landmark Sunshine Cinema.
: Evan Falk/WWD
Actress and comedian Janeane Garofalo, 61, has fibromyalgia and has used the condition as fuel for her standup routines, according to a 2009 write up in the Boston Globe.
She mentioned onstage that she takes antidepressants to manage and quipped that “I had no idea I was chronically dissatisfied.”
Mary McDonough, 64
Mary McDonough
Brian Putnam/FilmMagic
The Waltons actress Mary McDonough, 64, has shared her journey with fibromyalgia in interviews over the years. In a 2011 interview with Smashing Interviews Magazine, McDonough talked about how her symptoms from fibromyalgia and lupus often overlap.
“The chronic fatigue set in, the rashes, the rash across my nose and the bridge of my face, which we now know is like a lupus rash, the joint pain, the muscle stiffness, eventually being diagnosed with fibromyalgia, and then the collagen disorder called Sjogren’s syndrome. My hair fell out, and I would be tired all of the time,” she told the magazine. “Of course, everybody kept saying, ‘Well you’re crazy. You’re depressed. Go to therapy!’ So it was 10 years of being undiagnosed, and finally I got to the point where I was in so much pain I couldn’t even lift my daughter.”
