Marvel and Lost star Evangeline Lilly suffers ‘brain damage’ after Hawaii accident

Ant-Man and Lost star Evangeline Lilly has given fans a health update after suffering an accident in Hawaii in May.

Lilly, 46, posted on Instagram this week informing fans that she has been diagnosed with “brain damage”.

The actor, who played Kate Austen in all six seasons of the series Lost, had been on holiday in Hawaii, where the much-loved show was primarily filmed between 2004 and 2010, when the incident occurred last summer.

Lilly fainted and fell headfirst into a boulder on the beach, leaving the actor with bruising and cuts on her face.

Speaking in a video posted to Instagram, Lilly said: “It’s late on January 1st. The first day of 2026. I’m entering into this new year, the year of the horse, with some bad news about my concussion.

“A lot of you have asked how I’m doing. A lot of you have inquired about the brain scan that you heard I got. The results came back from the scan, and almost every area in my brain is functioning at a decreased capacity.”

Lilly continued: “I do have brain damage from the TBI (traumatic brain injury) and possibly other factors going on. My job now is to get to the bottom of that with my doctors.

“Then I’ll embark on the hard work of fixing it, which I’m not looking forward to – I feel like hard work is all I do. But that’s OK. My cognitive decline is because I smashed my face open [but] it’s helped me to slow down.”

The actor noted that the injury has taught her “to have a more restful finish” to her year, adding that this was “the most restful Christmas holiday” she’s had since having her two sons, born in 2011 and 2015.

“‘I’m still feeling extraordinarily grateful and blessed to be able to play for one more day, one more year on this beautiful living planet,” she concluded. “So, that is my concussion update. Thank you all for caring.”

In May last year, Lilly shared details of the accident on Substack alongside photos of her face, which had stitches between her nose and her lip, with a few shallower cuts on her chin.

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“I fainted at the beach. And fell face first into a boulder,” she wrote. “At the hospital, the nurses and doctor went straight into action, more determined to find the cause of my blackout than to stitch up the hole punctured into my face by the rock. I smiled wryly at them. ‘You won’t find anything.’ I said with a woozy voice.”

Lilly explained in her Substack post that she’s experienced “fainting spells” since she was a child, and was diagnosed with hypoglycemia (low blood sugar).

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“But, as I got older, and other health issues started to enter the picture, my doctor started doing a LOT of blood work,” she wrote. “What was interesting was how, even after a 12-hour fast, even after blacking out, my glucose levels never came back as low. Hypoglycemia, it seemed, was being ruled out.”

In addition to her role on Lost, Lilly is known for playing Hope Van Dyne (the Wasp) in the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s Ant-Man and the Wasp series.