Does Jameela Jamil Have Munchuasen Syndrome? Insta Thread Claiming Actress Fakes Her Illnesses For Attention Goes Viral
Is she making up her illnesses? One writer thinks so.
Getty Jameela Jamil has landed in a few controversies over the past month. First, she was announced as a judge on the upcoming HBO Max series Legendary, a posing competition between ballroom performers. Because Jamil has no other ties to the ballroom community, fans of the artform were bothered by her hiring.
Shortly after that kerfuffle started, the actress, who has been in a relationship with singer James Blake since 2015, came out as queer. Some people thought she was doing it to boost her credibility for Legendary. She took Twitter to defend her sexual identity, saying she had never come out before because she feared discrimination.
Now, a writer is saying that her colorful health history might be a ruse she uses for attention. Writer and producer Tracie Egan Morrisey leveled an accusation that the actress suffers from Muchhausen syndrome. Jamil is not amused and has fired back, calling Morrissey 'an unhinged idiot.'
Does Jameela Jamil have Munchausen syndrome? Read on for all the details.
1. Who is Jameela Jamil?
Jamil, who is 32 years old is probably best known for playing Tahani Al-Jamil on The Good Place. Before that, she had absolutely no acting experience, though she was a TV and radio personality in England working as a presenter on Channel 4's T4 from 2009 until 2012 and as the host of The Official Chart on BBC Radio 1. She moved to LA in 2016 in the hopes of becoming a screenwriter, but a friend talked her into auditioning for the series. When they asked her to take the part in The Good Place, she actually suggested that producers were making a mistake and should find someone else. They convinced her to take the part and the show ran for four seasons and was nominated for multiple Emmy and Golden Globe awards.
2. What are her health problems?
Jamil was born with congenital hearing loss and other inner ear issues that required surgery to correct when she was a child. She also says she was diagnosed with the connective tissue disorder Ehlers-Danlos syndrome when she was nine years old. She says was involved in a car accident at 17 that left her worried she might never walk again. She recovered after extensive physical therapy. She claims she suffered from an eating disorder in her teens, brought on by unrealistic images of women in the media and her own experience modeling. She says she was born with severe food allergies and has a celiac disease diagnosis as well as mercury poisoning from dental fillings that affected her digestive tract. She has also said she had a cancer scare in recent years. She has also shared her struggles with mental health and her experience having an abortion.
She has received awards for her advocacy on Ehlers-Danlos syndrome.
3. What is Munchausen syndrome?
Munchausen syndrome is one in a family of mental illness called factitious disorders. Factitious disorders are "conditions in which a person deliberately and consciously acts as if he or she has a physical or mental illness when he or she is not really sick." Munchausen is the best-known disorder of this type and named after Baron von Munchausen, an 18th-century German officer who was known for telling highly embellished versions of events.
The syndrome is usually characterized by a person faking or inducing symptoms in order to convince people around them that they are sick and in need of treatment. Some of the warning signs of Munchausen include a dramatic but inconsistent medical history, extensive knowledge of medical jargon and clinical definitions, a history of seeking treatment at numerous different places but a reluctance to allow doctors to talk to family, friends, or prior doctors.
4. Dose Jameela Jamil have Munchausen syndrome?
With the laundry list of health complaints that Jamil has shared over the years, it's not surprising that someone started asking questions. She really does seem to have been through far more than the average person, when it comes to health conditions. Writer Tracie Egan Morrissey started doing a deep dive into everything Jamil has said about her health over the past few years and documented in her archived Instagram stories, this one entitled 'JJ.' She claims there are a lot of contradictory statements and embellishments on Jami;'s part and wondered if she might be making up some of her symptoms for attention. For example, Jamil said she had a cancer scare in 2015 but in 2019 tweeted that she actually had cancer twice. She also claimed to have been attacked by swarms of bees but in a later video, Mark Ronson — who was with her, claims it was "maybe one or two individual bees." Morrissey also found multiple mentions of concussions and other injuries in Jamil's Twitter feed but no other evidence that the injuries really happened.
5. What does Jamil say about the accusations that she's faking it?
In public, Jamil has leveled some sharp retorts at Morrissey. "First I’m lying about my sexuality, now I’m now being accused of munchausens? By an unhinged idiot who didn’t even realize in all her “research” that my car accident injury stories are “different” because they were about TWO SEPARATE CAR ACCIDENTS 13 years apart? You can keep it," she tweeted.
On Instagram, she remarked, "Some weirdo stalker started a viral conspiracy thread on my having munchausens apparently. She thought that because my car accident stories was “different”... that’s because they were about two separate car accidents 13 years apart. In her rush to bully and drag, she forgot to read. But after a few hours of feeling upset that I’m being gaslit and targeted for harassment. I sort of realized...oh. Ok. Some people have sad, empty lives. And doing this gives them some purpose."
6. Allegedly, Jamil has DMed the writer on Instagram and the writer plans to reveal the DMs.
That's the big question now. Morrissey claims that she got DM's from Jamil for hours after she posted her Instagram story. She will be posting screenshots of the messages on her paid-access Patreon account at some point. Jamil has not commented about the DMs to Morrissey so far.
7. But Jamil's defenders have come out in full force.
It's entirely possible that Jamil really does have a long and complicated health history. Ehlers-Danlos is a serious condition that can come with other problems. A Twitter supporter of Jamil's says, "Having Ehlers Danlos would easily explain why she has most of her other health issues (and genetically linked breast cancer is also a real thing a lot of women deal with). Unrelated issues people have with her asides, that Munchausen page is engaging is blatant ableism." Jamil responded, "Ehlers Danlos Syndrome means always having people doubt your illness and injuries because you look okay."
Another fan sent some validation Jamil's way, saying "It's hard enough to be sick and in pain- i can't even imagine what it feels like having that invalidated by faceless people on the internet. You are strong and you are valid!! We are here for you and we/i love you so much!!!!
Rebekah Kuschmider has been writing about celebrities, pop culture, entertainment, and politics since 2010. She is the creator of the blog FeminXer and she is a cohost of the weekly podcast The More Perfect Union.