Actor Brad Pitt says he believes he has a condition that causes facial blindness and is looking for someone he can relate to.
Although the 58-year-old has never been formally diagnosed with the condition, called prosopagnosia, he told GQ magazine that struggles to recognize and remember faces and has gotten him into some trouble in the past.
Prosopagnosia is a neurological disorder that makes it difficult or impossible for a person to recognize faces they have seen before. And while it may seem like a rare condition, Faceblind.org estimates that roughly two percent of the population is affected.
Read more:
Trophy hunter shot to death and abandoned on the side of a road in South Africa
Pitt told GQ that he has a lot of trouble recognizing faces and that has led others to think he’s self-centered or aloof.
“nobody believes me!” he told the outlet for next month’s cover story, adding that he would like to meet and talk to another blind person.
It is not the first time that the actor has said that he feels bad about his inability to remember faces.
In 2013, he told Esquire that, in the past, he’d ask people to remind him of where or when they met, but “people were more offended.”
“A lot of people hate me because they think I’m disrespecting them,” Pitt said at the time. “You get this thing, like, ‘You’re being selfish. You are being conceited. But it’s a mystery to me, man. i can’t grab a face And yet I come from that design/aesthetic point of view.”
Read more:
$350K raised for a Burger King worker who received a puny gift bag for 27 years of service
According to Psychology Today, prosopagnosia can appear in childhood, stemming from genetics, or it can be acquired after a brain abnormality or damage.
It is difficult to diagnose, as the brain tends to process faces in a very complex way.
Although there is no cure, people with face blindness can often discover compensatory skills such as looking for a person’s unique physical characteristics or listening to their voice.
However, prosopagnosia can be an isolating condition in which people feel they have to avoid social situations and interactions. People may also experience symptoms of anxiety or depression.
© 2022 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.