Today, March 3rd, is World Hearing Day, and with this article about actors who wear hearing aids, we want to raise awareness of an increasingly widespread issue: hearing loss and the use of hearing aids.
According to the latest international hearing study, carried out last year in Spain and other countries, the main reason people in Spain don’t use hearing aids isn’t the price or their features, but social stigma — the aesthetic aspect. This isn’t the case in other countries, where hearing aids are as normalised as glasses.
It’s a serious social problem that, for the sake of appearances, people give up the ability to hear, communicate and socialise.
More and more studies are showing the link between hearing loss and cognitive decline. The solution nowadays is simple: wearing hearing aids — but there’s still social stigma around using them. Little by little, we need to break down these barriers, for one simple but powerful reason: hearing well changes the lives of the people who wear them, and of those around them.
That’s why, on World Hearing Day, we’re bringing you ten actors who wear hearing aids. Ten faces we’re used to seeing on the big screen, some of them even walking the red carpet. These are people who have acted in countless films and who, surprisingly, all have something in common: they have hearing loss.
Here are ten actors who wear hearing aids and have made it big in film:
Halle Berry
We’ve seen her in Catwoman, X-Men, and as a Bond girl in 007 — we could go on naming films Halle Berry has starred in. Yet very few people know that this American actress has 80% hearing loss in her left ear.
The cause of this hearing loss was the domestic violence she suffered for years at the hands of her partner at the time, one of whose blows left her almost completely deaf in that ear.
Jodie Foster
This great actress, known for The Silence of the Lambs and a long film career that continues to this day, has hearing loss that requires her to wear hearing aids. As she has said, this loss was caused by an untreated ear condition.
Whoopi Goldberg
Listening to loud music caused Whoopi Goldberg’s hearing loss, as the Oscar winner has said herself, acknowledging that she wears hearing aids due to her hearing impairment.
Rob Lowe
The famous actor, a teen idol of the 1980s, completely lost hearing in his right ear at just 9 months old. According to the actor, this happened after a bout of mumps that wasn’t treated in time.
Robert Redford
The veteran actor is known for an endless film career, but what he didn’t know was that while filming one of his movies, he’d suffer a mishap that would leave him with 60% hearing loss in his left ear.
It all happened while filming “All Is Lost” (2013). Redford played a sailor lost in the Indian Ocean, spending day after day submerged in a water tank. Apparently, all that water exposure caused an infection that led to this hearing loss.
Gary Busey
Busey suffered a motorcycle accident years ago that caused head injuries, which led to his hearing loss.
He now wears hearing aids to hear properly and is committed to helping other people who, like him, also struggle with hearing problems.
Lou Ferrigno
His name might not ring a bell, but if we tell you he’s the man who played the Incredible Hulk on TV, you’ll know exactly who we mean. This actor and former bodybuilder lost 75% of his hearing at age 3 due to an ear infection, which meant he had to start wearing hearing aids from the age of 4.
Santiago Segura
This Spanish actor and director opened up about suffering from tinnitus, which started after a case of sudden deafness. Apparently, he woke up one day unable to hear anything, and his doctor later confirmed the diagnosis.
Jane Lynch
She’s had unilateral hearing loss since she was a baby, but she didn’t discover it until she was 7 years old, when, playing with her brother one day, she realised she couldn’t hear out of both ears.
Holly Hunter
The star of countless films, like Rob Lowe, lost her hearing — in her case, in her left ear — after a bout of mumps that wasn’t treated in time. According to the actress, this turned out to be a positive experience, as she feels it has made her pay closer attention to everything happening around her.
How Can I Get My Hearing Checked?
We hope this article helps normalise hearing loss and helps people understand that the problem isn’t wearing hearing aids — quite the opposite. The real problem is not being able to hear, understand, and connect with the people we love.
If you suspect you might have hearing loss but aren’t sure, and would like a free hearing assessment with us, you can get in touch by filling in the following form:
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*All images featured in this article are free to use, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons, the free media repository, and the Pixabay image library
