Brian Austin Green is opening up about a terrifying neurological crisis that left him unable to walk, talk, read or write — and doctors never fully figured out what caused it.
The Beverly Hills, 90210 star, 53, revealed that the mysterious health episode struck when he was around 39 or 40 years old and ultimately took him more than four years to recover from.
“I ended up with this neurological thing, and it was, like, stroke-like symptoms,” Green said during the Aug. 26 episode of the Really Famous podcast with psychotherapist Kara Mayer Robinson.
According to Green, the disorder was “never completely diagnosed.”
He said doctors believed inflammation in his body, possibly related to his diet, may have played a role. Emotional stress may also have contributed.
But whatever caused it, the effects were devastating.
“It took about four and a half years to recover from,” Green said.
“I had to learn how to walk again, to talk again. I had to learn how to sort of do everything again.”
Green said the condition became so severe that even basic tasks disappeared almost overnight.
“I couldn’t read,” he said. “I couldn’t write.”
He described the experience as feeling as though the person he had been was suddenly gone.
“Who I was, essentially, was no more,” Green said. “My brain and my body completely disconnected.”
The health crisis unfolded while Green was married to actress Megan Fox.
The couple married in 2010 and remained together on and off for roughly a decade before ending their relationship for good in 2020.
Green previously spoke about the frightening episode in 2023, saying he was also dealing with severe vertigo and ulcerative colitis.
At one point, the combination left him bedridden for three months.
“These neurological things started happening after the vertigo,” Green said at the time.
He said the ordeal lasted years and eventually became so debilitating that he could barely move normally.
“I got to the point where I shuffled like I was a 90-year-old man,” he recalled.
Green also previously said doctors believed his symptoms were connected to dietary issues.
The actor and Fox were involved in a car accident in December 2014 when their vehicle was struck by a drunk driver, but Green has said his neurological symptoms were not caused by that crash.
Instead, he has repeatedly pointed to internal inflammation, diet and stress as possible factors.
The mystery surrounding the episode appears to remain unresolved years later.
Despite never receiving a definitive diagnosis, Green eventually regained the abilities he had lost — but only after what he described as a grueling four-and-a-half-year recovery.
For the actor, the experience amounted to having to rebuild his life from the ground up after his brain and body seemingly stopped working together.