Celebrities With Tinnitus - and How Each of Them Got It
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Chapters
- 0:00Celebrities with tinnitus
- 0:26How did Kirk and Spock get it?
- 0:54What did Shatner do about it?
- 1:22What happened to Steve Martin?
- 1:49Why did Neil Young go quiet?
- 2:23What if there was no loud noise at all?
- 3:00Back to Kirk and Spock
- 3:17Who else has tinnitus?
Transcript
0:00Celebrities with tinnitus
Which celebrities have tinnitus, and how did they get it? Start with the strangest one. Two Star Trek actors, the men who played Kirk and Spock, got theirs on the same day. The rock stars are only part of the story. A comedian got his on a film set. A singer has had hers since she was a child, with no loud noise anywhere near it. By the end, you will know which of these causes you can do something about, and which one you cannot.
0:26How did Kirk and Spock get it?
How did Kirk and Spock get it? It was nineteen sixty-seven, and they were filming an episode of Star Trek. A special-effects explosion went off close to them. Both men walked away with ringing in their ears. And the same blast landed on each of them differently. Leonard Nimoy's tinnitus was in his right ear. William Shatner's is in his left. For both of them, it never really went away. Nimoy lived with it for the rest of his life.
0:54What did Shatner do about it?
What did Shatner do about it? He has called the years that followed a long run of ups and downs. Eventually he went looking for help, and found the American Tinnitus Association. What he took up was sound therapy and counselling. It is an approach built around getting used to the sound, rather than removing it. Today he describes himself not as cured, but as used to it. And he has spent years speaking up for tinnitus research.
1:22What happened to Steve Martin?
What happened to Steve Martin? In nineteen eighty-six he was filming the western comedy Three Amigos. He has said the ringing started during a gunfight scene, and it never left. Ask him how he lives with it, and his answer is short. You just get used to it. It is the same thing Shatner says, from a man who has had it for about forty years. That is their experience, not a promise, and for Shatner, getting there took decades.
1:49Why did Neil Young go quiet?
Why did Neil Young go quiet? In nineteen ninety-one, Neil Young toured one of the loudest shows of his career. Then he mixed the live album from it, called Weld, and has said he hurt his ears doing it. What followed came in that order. A loud tour and a loud mix, then everyday sound that felt far too loud, and then the ringing. So the next album he made was a quiet one, Harvest Moon, because he did not want to hear anything loud. Decades on, he says he still has mild tinnitus, and his hearing is not perfect, but okay.
2:23What if there was no loud noise at all?
What if there was no loud noise at all? Barbra Streisand has said hers started when she was a child, sitting in a classroom. No concert. No explosion. Nothing anybody could point to. So line the four stories up, and ask one question of each. The explosion on set was noise. So was the gunfire. So was the tour. The classroom was not. Three of the four came from noise, and noise is the one cause you can actually turn down. The fourth is the reminder that not every case has a cause you can find. That is exactly when it is worth getting checked, especially in a child.
3:00Back to Kirk and Spock
Back to Kirk and Spock. One explosion, nearly sixty years ago, and two of the most famous faces on television have carried it ever since. Three of the four stories you just heard began with a loud noise, and only one of them began in a quiet room.
3:17Who else has tinnitus?
Who else has tinnitus? Pete Townshend, Chris Martin, Lars Ulrich, Eric Clapton, Phil Collins, Ozzy Osbourne, Jeff Beck, Liam Gallagher, and will.i.am. So, which of these stories sounded most like your own?
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