Famous People with Meningitis

Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wills Wilde

Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wills Wilde was an Irish writer and poet. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of London’s most popular playwrights in the early 1890s. Today he is remembered for his epigrams, his only novel, his plays, and the circumstances of his imprisonment and early death from cerebral meningitis on 30 November 1900.

Brad Pitt

After returning from a trip to Ethiopia in 2005, Brad Pitt started to complain of symptoms similar to the flu. After checking himself Los Angeles hospital Cedars-Sinai Medical Center on a Monday night in early July, he found out the diagnosis was far worse: he was in fact suffering from viral meningitis, After spending two days in hospital, Brad Pitt was released to recover at home.

John (Rotten) Lydon

Born to Irish parents, John (Johnny Rotten) Lyon is the eldest of three brothers. At the age of seven he contracted a serious bout of meningitis which put him in and out of coma’s for almost a year. Wiping most of his early memories and affecting his eyesight. He was in the Sex Pistols from 1975 to 1978 when they split.

Donald Sutherland

When he fell ill with meningitis in 1979 while filming Kelly’s Heroes, actor Donald Sutherland thought he was done for. He said he remembers how all the pain and suffering he was feeling suddenly vanished as he felt himself leave his body. Physicians later him that he had passed away for a very short time.

Lisa Snowdon

The model was hospitalised in November 2010 when she became seriously ill and was diagnosed with viral meningitis after an MRI and CAT scan showed swelling around her brain and spinal cord. But Lisa, who had experienced symptoms including severe headaches, loss of appetite and weakness, knows she put her health at risk by not getting checked out sooner.