Frankie Muniz, who is perhaps most well-known for his role as boy genius on ‘Malcolm In The Middle,’ has opened up about his battle with extreme memory loss.
In a pre-taped package for Dancing With the Stars, the actor and musician revealed that he doesn’t remember much of his time on the 151 episode-long series.
“Most people think that my most memorable year would be the year Malcolm in the Middle started, because it allowed me to live all these dreams of mine,” he said. “I’ve gotten to really do anything I’ve wanted to do, but the truth is, I don’t remember much [of it]… It almost feels like it wasn’t me.”
“It makes me a little sad,” he continued. “Things pop back into my mind [that] I should have remembered. I should have remembered going to Australia. That’s something people remember.”
The 31-year-old has suffered from mini-strokes, or transient ischemic attacks, which cut off blood supply to the brain. He suspects these, along with nine concussions (did we mention he’s also a professional race car driver?), may have contributed to his severe memory loss.
“I have had nine concussions and I’ve had a fair amount of mini-strokes,” he said. “I’m not saying those things correlate exactly to the reason why my memory’s not great.”
“I’ve never been to the doctor and been like, you know, ‘Why don’t I have a memory?’ ” he said. “To be honest, I’ve never really talked about it.”
Speaking to People after his performance, the actor said his memory loss is simply part of his life.
“It’s something that I never really wanted to talk about, because I’m just me and this is my life,” he said. “But we were talking about Malcolm [in the Middle] and how it started, and I don’t really have memories of being on the show.”
He said that he thought the memory loss was “normal.”
“Over the past 10 years, my mom will bring up things like trips we went on or big events and they are new stories to me,” he admitted. “I don’t know what the cause of it is. It’s not something I looked into, I just thought it was how my brain is — so I thought it was normal. I didn’t know I should remember going to the Emmys when I was younger.”
“I’m not a doctor person,” he added. “Every time I go to the doctors they just tell me I’m crazy.”
But there’s someone helping him remember everything that’s worth remembering — his girlfriend, Paige Price.
“She’s amazing,” he told the publication. “She literally writes because I get sad at the thought of losing the memories. So she writes in a journal that I can look at every day and it’s really cool, because it has amazing detail. She started doing that about a year ago and hopefully she’ll continue.
He added: “She’s awesome. She’s very supportive. I hope we have a lot more memories [together].”
