Marvel’s Evangeline Lilly reveals ‘brain damage’ after falling on boulder

Marvel star Evangeline Lilly has revealed she has “brain damage” after she fainted and “fell face first into a boulder”.

The 46-year-old revealed she had been taken to hospital following the incident in May last year, and said scans show her brain is “functioning at a decreased capacity” in “almost every area”.

She said in a post on Instagram: “I do have brain damage from the TBI (traumatic brain injury) and possibly other factors going on.

“But now my job is to get the bottom of that with the 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 that’s OK, 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.

“I think this was the calmest, most restful Christmas holiday I have had, maybe since I had children, so 14 years ago, so that’s a good thing.

“Feeling extraordinarily grateful and blessed to be able to play one more day, one more year on this beautiful living planet, and that is my concussion update, thank you all for caring.”

Revealing her fainting incident in May, Lilly said doctors had to “stitch up the hole punctured into my face by the rock”, in an Instagram post which featured photos that showed a scab above her top lip and marks on her nose and chin.

In a Substack post, the actress revealed she had fainting spells “since I was a little girl”, which had been put down to hypoglycemia, also known as low blood sugar.

She also said she had “blacked out” on the way to the hospital, as well as on the beach.

Lilly is best known for her roles in TV series Lost and Marvel films Ant-Man (2015) and Avengers: Endgame (2019), as well as comedy White Chicks and two Hobbit films: The Desolation Of Smaug (2013) and The Battle Of The Five Armies (2014).