Josh Brolin was under a lot of stress when he moved back to his hometown.
The actor, 56, spoke about contracting the medical condition Bell’s Palsy when he returned to Montecito, Calif., where he grew up, on an episode of Sirius XM’s Literally! With Rob Lowe podcast.
” I moved back recently,” Brolin said. “Can you believe it, moving back to this area?”
Host Rob Lowe replied, “There’s ghosts on every corner for you, right?”
The Marvel alum then explained that he was under such a high amount of stress throughout the moving process that he contracted Bell’s Palsy. The condition, according to Mayo Clinic, involves temporary weakness or paralysis of facial muscles.
“I got so stressed out about moving here because it represented something very specific to me that I ended up contracting a mild case of Bell’s Palsy,” Brolin said. “From the stress. Absolutely a hundred percent. There’s nothing else to blame it on.”
He added, “The last time I got Bell’s Palsy was 17 years ago when I was thinking about moving back up here. So the two times I’ve gotten Bell’s Palsy are when I was thinking about moving up here.”
But luckily, once Brolin was settled, he started to see the good side of it all.
When asked if he has been able to overcome his memories, he said, “Not only that, all these good memories are starting to come up. I’m like, wow, I remember when I was on Biltmore, we’re down in Butterfly. Was it Miramar? All these great things.”
Brolin continued, “So all these things are popping out of the ground. My childhood wasn’t as severe as I illustrated it to be, writers and storytellers make everything more dramatic not that it wasn’t, because I think it was, but, all the other stuff came too, and it’s been really nice.”
Last November, the actor released a tell-all memoir about his life on and off screen called From Under the Truck. In it, he detailed his “unconventional childhood” and his rise to fame in hit movies like The Goonies and No Country for Old Men.
Brolin also discussed his close relationship with his late, fearless mother Jane Agee Brolin and how her death affected him, as well as his experiences with addiction and fatherhood.
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In December 2024, he recalled trying LSD for the first time at 13 years old during an appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live.
“I don’t know how it happens, man. You have parents — where are the parents?” the actor said. “Did they give it to me, did they misplace a sugar cube, I don’t know.”
Brolin, whose parents are actor James Brolin and Agee, quickly explained that he and his friends in Santa Barbara, Calif., began experimenting with the drug “very early on.”
“And I had a great trip. I had the most kind of amazing — 13 years old, your brain is still developing,” he said. “It’s probably not the best time to start that drug, but I really had an amazing time. I saw a fireplace talking to me who said some nice things. I liked what he said. I didn’t dislike what he said. It was like caressing, it was wisdom.”
New episodes of SiriusXM’s Literally! With Rob Lowe are available every Thursday on the SiriusXM app and wherever podcasts are available.
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