Bad Fall: Evangeline Lilly Shares Brain Damage Diagnosis After Hitting Her Head on a Boulder

Actress Evangeline Lilly started the new year by opening up about her struggles with brain damage, months after suffering from a concussion when she fainted and fell into a boulder back in May 2025.

The 46-year-old Marvel Cinematic Universe alum talked about her 'bad news' on a video she posted on her Instagram account.

Lilly's Diagnosis

The actress confirmed her brain damage diagnosis in the video. She added the caption, '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.'

The Canadian actress shared that she suffered from traumatic brain injury (TBI) after falling face-first on a rock while on a beach. Then Lilly went on to discuss the result of her latest brain scan, where she discovered that nearly all parts of her brain were not fully functioning.

'So I do have brain damage from the TBI and possibly other factors going on,' she stated on the video. 'But now my job is to get to the bottom of that with 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 Lilly remained optimistic despite her current health challenge. According to the Lost alum, the incident helped her be more relaxed for the rest of the year. 'My cognitive decline since I smashed my face open has helped me to slow down and helped me to have a more restful finish to my 2025,' she claimed.

Lilly's Unexplainable Condition

The actress documented the cause of her brain damage on social media.

On Substack, Lilly shared a photo taken after her fall, showing her bloody nose and bruises on her face.

She also recalled that the medical staff who attended to her at that time quickly went into action to find out why she had a blackout instead of stitching her wound.

Lilly said that the doctors and nurses tried to cover all bases and performed numerous laboratory and blood tests, which all yielded normal results. She told them that they would not find anything, since she already experienced fainting spells since she was a child.

She also mentioned that her partner and the father of her children, Norman Kali, gets worried every time she has a fainting spell. 'My partner says that when I black out, I look like I die. He gets very afraid. My eyes roll back in my head and all life leaves my body. He is constantly checking my nose and mouth for breath. This time was no exception. He wasn't with me at the beach, but on the way to the hospital I blacked out again,' she added.

At the moment, Lilly is taking a break from Hollywood. Her last acting project was 2023's Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, where she played the role of Wasp, or Hope Van Dyne. She opted to step out of the limelight to focus on her family, according to her old post.