Aubrey Plaza is opening up about the sudden stroke she experienced at just 20 years old. The Parks and Recreation star, now 40, recently shared more details during an interview, recalling how the incident left her briefly unable to speak or move. “It was wild,” Plaza said, explaining that the stroke struck mid-conversation.
Plaza had just arrived at a friend’s apartment in Astoria, New York, when it happened. “I hadn’t even taken my jacket off,” she recalled. “Suddenly, I lost my motor skills and couldn’t talk. It was terrifying.”
Initially, paramedics thought Plaza might have been under the influence of drugs, as she revealed in a previous 2017 interview. After being taken to the hospital, doctors determined she had suffered a stroke. “They asked me to place my right hand on my left knee, and I couldn’t do it. That’s when they realized it was a stroke,” she said.
Plaza has experienced minor transient ischemic attacks (TIAs), or “mini-strokes,” since then. Currently, she is recovering from a torn ACL, an injury she sustained playing basketball during the NBA All-Star Weekend. Plaza is set to star in the upcoming Francis Ford Coppola film Megalopolis, a role she was “shocked” to land.
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