12 celebrities living with diabetes – and how they manage their health, from Tom Hanks, Salma Hayek and Halle Berry, to Nick Jonas and even Kate Moss’ teenage daughter, Lila Moss | South China Morning Post
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12 celebrities living with diabetes – and how they manage their health, from Tom Hanks, Salma Hayek and Halle Berry, to Nick Jonas and even Kate Moss’ teenage daughter, Lila Moss

Nick Jonas, Salma Hayek, Meghan Trainor and Billy Porter are all celebrities who suffer from diabetes. Photos: @nickjonas, @meghan_trainor/Instagram; EPA-EFE; AFP

According to a 2020 report by the CDC, 34.2 million Americans had diabetes in 2018 – and even A-listers count among those numbers too.

Meet 12 celebrities who have spoken out about their diabetes, whether they have type 1, type 2 or gestational.

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Nick Jonas

Nick Jonas was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes at age 13. Photo: @nickjonas/Instagram

Nick Jonas wrote a song about his type 1 diagnosis, A Little Bit Longer.

For people with diabetes, the body does not properly process food so that it can be turned into energy. If you have type 1 diabetes, your body cannot produce insulin, a hormone that allows the body to convert sugar from food into energy, and this can cause dangerously high blood sugar levels.

I have full control of my day to day life with this disease
Nick Jonas

Jonas was diagnosed when he was just 13 years old. He wrote about his diagnosis in a 2018 Instagram post of two pictures of him side by side – one right after he was diagnosed in 2005 and one in 2018.

“13 years ago today I was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. The picture on the left is me a few weeks after my diagnosis. Barely 100 pounds after having lost so much weight from my blood sugar being so high before going to the doctor where I would find out I was diabetic,” he wrote.

“On the right is me now. Happy and healthy. Prioritising my physical health, working out and eating healthy and keeping my blood sugar in check. I have full control of my day to day life with this disease, and I’m so grateful to my family and loved ones who have helped me every step of the way. Never let anything hold you back from living your best life,” he continued.

Billy Porter

Billy Porter wrote about his HIV status and diabetes diagnosis in The Hollywood Reporter. Photo: Getty Images/AFP

When writing about his HIV status in a moving piece for The Hollywood Reporter in May, Billy Porter also revealed he was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes.

“It was 2007, the worst year of my life. I was on the precipice of obscurity for about a decade or so, but 2007 was the worst of it. By February, I had been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes. By March, I signed bankruptcy papers. And by June, I was diagnosed HIV-positive,” he wrote.

Later on in the article, he wrote about his health status today.

“I go to the doctor, and I know what’s going on in my body. I’m the healthiest I’ve been in my entire life,” he said.

Salma Hayek

Salma Hayek was diagnosed with gestational diabetes while pregnant with her daughter, Valentina. Photo: EPA-EFE
When diabetes is diagnosed for the first time during pregnancy, it’s called gestational diabetes. Hayek had gestational diabetes while pregnant with her daughter, Valentina, in 2007.

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“I got gestational diabetes, which I didn’t realise at first,” Hayek told Parents in 2008. “It occurs in women who have high blood sugar levels during pregnancy. I didn’t know whether I was feeling bad because I was pregnant or whether something was seriously wrong. I was nauseated for nine months, which can be one of the symptoms.”

Tom Hanks

Tom Hanks revealed his type 2 diabetes diagnosis in 2013. Photo: AFP

In those with type 2 diabetes, insulin resistance builds up over time, and lifestyle factors may play a part.

Tom Hanks thinks he developed type 2 because – in his words – he was “a total idiot”.

Hanks first revealed his diagnosis in 2013 during an appearance on The Tonight Show with David Letterman.

“I went to the doctor, and he said, ‘You know those high blood sugar numbers you’ve been dealing with since you were 36? Well, you’ve graduated! You’ve got type 2 diabetes, young man,’” Hanks said.

Paula Deen

Paula Deen kept her diabetes diagnosis a secret while promoting her rich recipes. Photo: @chris_notcapn/Twitter

Paula Deen kept her diagnosis a secret from everyone, including the Food Network, for three years – all while promoting her famously decadent recipes.

In 2012, the celebrity chef announced a partnership with Novo Nordisk, which doubled as her announcement of her diagnosis. It rubbed some of her contemporaries the wrong way, like the late chef Anthony Bourdain, who told Eater in 2012: “When your signature dish is hamburger in between a doughnut, and you’ve been cheerfully selling this stuff knowing all along that you’ve got type 2 diabetes, it’s in bad taste if nothing else.”

Meghan Trainor

Meghan Trainor was also diagnosed with gestational diabetes in December 2020. Photo: @meghan_trainor/Instagram

Meghan Trainor was diagnosed with gestational diabetes in December 2020. She spoke about her experience during an appearance on the Today show.

“Got a little, little, tiny bump in the road – I got diagnosed with gestational diabetes, but it’s manageable and it’s OK and I’m healthy and the baby’s healthy,” Trainor said. “I just have to really pay attention to everything I eat. It’s nice to learn so much about food and health and nice to hear that so many women experienced this.”

She gave birth to a son, Riley, in February 2021.

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Randy Jackson

Randy Jackson wrote about his type 2 diagnosis in his book, Body with Soul. Photo: Invision/AP

Randy Jackson wrote about his type 2 diagnosis in his 2008 book, “Body With Soul.”

“It’s a curse to be saddled with a disease that’s life threatening and that you can’t completely get rid of (though you can certainly manage it). But it’s a blessing to get that huge wake-up call,” he wrote.

In the book, he revealed he had been diagnosed back in 1999 after a trip to the emergency room.

Billie Jean King

Tennis legend Billie Jean King said she felt “well-prepared” to deal with her type 2 diabetes diagnosis. Photo: AP Photo

When tennis legend Billie Jean King was diagnosed with type 2, she said she felt “well-prepared” to handle it.

“When I was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes about three years ago, I felt well-prepared,” she wrote for the Huffington Post in 2007. “My blood sugar started to get elevated and I tracked it with my doctor and I knew I had to make some changes in my life. Like so many people, I have battled with my weight for years, and I realised this was a factor I must address as well.”

“For me, managing my diabetes has been all about making smart food choices without depriving myself of the foods I love – maintaining a healthy relationship with food,” she wrote in another blog post that year.

Bret Michaels

Bret Michaels was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes when he was six years old. Photo: AP Photo/Starpix

Poison’s Bret Michaels was diagnosed with type 1 when he was just six years old.

“No doubt when I got diagnosed at six I was really, really sick. I was going into keto-acidosis and it was a pretty scary time of my life, but I was so young so even when I was in hospital I was totally having fun,” Michaels told Parents in 2010.

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“I think it was a blessing because it helped me in this sense: it really gave me a sense of self – the way my parents taught me, a sense of self-confidence, to be aware of my body, to know what’s going on with my body, to be able to know that eating right and exercising and all that stuff would play a big factor in my life – and a life or death factor in my life,” he continued.

Lila Moss

Lila Moss has walked the runway wearing her insulin pump. Photo: @lilamoss/Instagram
Lila Moss, the 19-year-old daughter of supermodel Kate Moss, is following in her mother’s footsteps – and not shying away from showing off her insulin pump – even on the runway.

In August 2020, she revealed her diagnosis during an interview with The Kit.

“I think not many people know that I have diabetes. It’s not visible from the outside, so no one would really know just by looking at you. I have type 1,” she said.

“I’d definitely like to try and help as much as I can. There’s loads of things I’d like to try and help with,” Moss added.

Halle Berry

Halle Berry was diagnosed with diabetes in her 20s. Photo: @halleberry/Instagram

Halle Berry was also diagnosed with diabetes in her 20s. She spoke to Variety in 2020 about living with diabetes during the pandemic.

“I do feel at risk,” she said. “I’m very strict about quarantining and who is in my bubble. We have a whole section of the house: when you go out in the world and buy something, it has to sit in this purgatory.”

Gabourey Sidibe

Gabourey Sidibe decided to get weight-loss surgery in 2016, due to her type 2 diagnosis. Photo: Invision/AP
Gabourey Sidibe decided to get weight-loss surgery in 2016 due to her type 2 diagnosis. She shared her decision to get laparoscopic bariatric surgery with People in 2016, a year after she had gotten the procedure.

“I just didn’t want to worry,” she said. “I truly didn’t want to worry about all the effects that go along with diabetes. I genuinely [would] worry all the time about losing my toes.”

This article originally appeared on Insider
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  • American Horror Story star Billy Porter wrote about his HIV and type 2 diabetes, while his castmate Gabourey Sidibe’s diagnosis prompted her to get weight-loss surgery
  • Tennis legend Billie Jean King is careful about her diet – while ‘maintaining a healthy relationship with food’ – and Hayek got gestational diabetes while pregnant with Valentina