Kim Basinger Reveals Agoraphobia Battle Left Her Housebound For Years: I Had To ‘Relearn Everything’
Kim Basinger talked with Jada Pinkett Smith and others on ‘Red Table Talk’ about her struggles with agoraphobia, an extreme fear of entering open or crowded places, and how she had to ‘relearn how to drive’ and more.
Kim Basinger, 68, revealed her struggle with agoraphobia in the latest episode of Jada Pinkett Smith‘s online talk show, Red Table Talk. The actress appeared on the show with her daughter Ireland Baldwin opened up about the effects caused by the phobia, which is an extreme fear of entering open or crowded places, and how they caused her to be housebound for years, in the in-depth interview, which is set to air on April 27.
“[I] would no longer go to dinner,” Kim told Jada at one point in a preview of the upcoming episode. “I had to relearn to drive, and for many years I would not go through the tunnels at Malibu. Everything used to make me nervous, like the glass [sliding] to open the door, or, ‘Where do I step to open the door?’ Everything became a big job to figure out how to do it.”
“You live with a dry mouth all the time, you’re very shaky, you’re just so exhausted all the time,” she added.
Kim went on to describe living with agoraphobia as “like something just completely shuts down within you and you have to relearn everything.”
In addition to her struggles with the phobia, Kim and Ireland discussed Ireland’s own health struggles which at one point had her not talking to her mom or dad, Alec Baldwin, whom Kim was married to from 1993 until 2002, for a year. The beauty admitted she had been self-medicating with Xanax and too much alcohol.
“I saw them here and there but I was so ashamed of what I had become and how I was living,” she said when opening up about choosing not to see her parents during the tough time. “I just became this different person. I was emaciated in every way; I was lifeless.”
The full episode of Kim and Ireland’s interview will air on Red Table Talk‘s Facebook Watch page on April 27.