A little known fact about Brad Pitt is that he has prosopagnosia. The neurological condition is also known as face blindness and people who suffer from it are often not able to recognize people they have met before.
In an interview with GQ, Pitt said that unfortunately “nobody believes him” and he is eager to find other people who suffer from the same condition.
“I wanna meet another,” he told the magazine. The 58-year-old actor said that while he has not been officially diagnosed with the condition it is something he wants to get tested for and he suspected that something was not quite right from 2013 onwards.
He said that he was unable to “grasp a face” which he said often caused people to form negative opinions about him thinking he can’t be bothered to recognize and remember them.
According to the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) it is thought to be caused by “abnormalities, impairment or damage” in the brain. It can also be caused by a stroke, traumatic brain injury or certain neurodegenerative diseases. However it can also be genetic and be present from birth.
Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak also said he had prosopagnosia in a 2017 interview with The Carousel. “Strange hair, certain clothings, a voice that I can recognize,” he said. “A lot of people have this but you never know as it never know unless it shows up as an outstanding thing.”
Scientist and conservationist Jane Goodall spoke about having the condition in her book Reason for Hope: A Spiritual Journey. She said she used to think “it was due to some mental laziness” that rendered her unable to memorize people’s faces.
“I had no trouble with those who had obvious physical characteristics – unusual bone structure, beaky nose, extreme beauty or the opposite. But with other faces I failed, miserably,” she said. “Sometimes I knew that people were upset when I did not immediately recognize them – certainly I was. And because I was embarrassed, I kept it to myself.”
Goodall said that her sister suffers from the same condition as well and she has since been diagnosed by a well known neurologist.