Anne Hathaway has opened up about a major vision problem she dealt with for years, revealing that a long-running cataract issue left her ‘legally blind’ in one eye until she eventually had surgery.
The 43-year-old actress, who is set to appear in Devil Wears Prada 2, shared the unexpected detail while speaking on the New York Times’ Popcast podcast with hosts Jon Caramanica and Joe Coscarelli, describing how difficult the experience was behind the scenes.
“This is maybe too much information,” she quipped before sharing her story. “I was half blind for 10 years.”
Hathaway explained that she was diagnosed with an early-onset cataract between the ages of 30 and 40. Cataracts are generally caused by clouding in the eye’s lens, which can distort and dull sight.
While the condition is far more common in older adults, Hathaway said she experienced it much earlier than most people would expect.
According to the Mayo Clinic ,”People who have cataracts, seeing through cloudy lenses is often like looking through a frosty or fogged-up window,”
They then went on to add, ”Clouded vision caused by cataracts can make it hard to read, drive a car at night or see the expression on a friend’s face.”
For roughly a decade, she was dealing with impaired vision in one eye to the point that everyday tasks became significantly harder.
She said the situation reached a point where she was ‘basically legally blind out of her left eye’.
The Social Security Administration (SSA) defines legal blindness as vision that remains at 20/200 or worse even with correction, or a visual field limited to 20 degrees or less.
“I wound up getting surgery,” she shared. “And I didn’t realize how bad it had gotten until I could finally see the full spectrum.”
“I’ve calmed down since then,” Hathaway added. “I didn’t realize it was actually taxing my nervous system.”
“I appreciate vision because I literally feel like every day, I wake up and I get to see the way that I do, it’s a miracle,” the actress continued.
“I actually am like, ‘Oh, two generations back, that wouldn’t have been an option for someone like me.’ So, I actually do feel very connected to that kind of a miracle.”
Her comments are the latest in a series of personal, straightforward reflections she has recently shared about her health and appearance. In a separate interview with Elle published on Thursday, May 21, Hathaway also addressed ongoing online rumours about plastic surgery.
In that conversation, she responded to the claims by saying she has a ‘preference’ to ‘never comment on anything’ and ‘not draw attention’ to herself.
“We’re at a time when people feel very confident in assuming what they think is fact, and sometimes what they think is accurate and sometimes it’s not,” Hathaway said,
“…The speculation has gotten so loud that you do feel the need to just get your truth out there,” she continued.
Referring to a video where her makeup artist demonstrated how to mimic a lifted look quickly by braiding her hair, Hathaway explained: “I’ll probably always wonder, ‘Should I have posted that or not? Should I have just kept going and done the thing that makes me happy and makes me feel more confident on the red carpet?’ But I felt like the conversation was becoming distracting.”
“Also, by the way, these are huge medical decisions that people are presuming,” she added. “I wanted to show that like, no, I didn’t make a huge medical decision. It’s just two braids.”
She then noted, however: “By the way, the other thing about all this is, I might still get a facelift someday.”