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Florence Pugh Opens Up About Her Rare Childhood Medical Condition
Edward Berthelot/Getty ImagesBritish actor Florence Pugh has been a young breakthrough actor as she can be seen in the thriller and horror movie “Midsommar” in 2019, as well as the most recent movie of the classic novel “Little Women” in the same year, per IMBd. Marvel fans know her as Yelena Belova, Natasha Romanoff aka Black Widow’s younger “sister.” The Oxford-born actor probably didn’t mind traveling to Norway, Morocco, and Budapest for “Black Widow,” as she spent three years of her childhood in Spain, allowing her to explore as a little girl.
“Even though we moved out [Oxford] for other reasons, looking back on it, I’m so happy I had that childhood,” Pugh told The Guardian. “[I was] in and out of the sea naked, cycling down the road in my knickers, and bartering with the sweet shop owner.”
It seems that Pugh is a fan of the great outdoors, as she was recently a guest on “Running Wild with Bear Grylls.” A preview clip showed the actor and Grylls jumping out of a helicopter and into a rainforest. Throughout the video, she kept calm, cool, and collected, and she even laughs at a joke that Grylls made. But with all of the action she does, most people don’t know that she grew up with a serious and rare respiratory condition.
Florence Pugh had tracheomalacia as a child
Marvel actor Florence Pugh was recently on an episode of “Running Wild with Bear Grylls.” According to UNILAD, the actor spoke about a rare medical condition, called tracheomalacia, that she had as a child, which put her in and out of hospitals from ages three to six. The upper-respiratory condition causes windpipe walls to collapse, making it hard to breathe. Pugh even mentioned that she moved from England to Spain due to the condition.
“When I was younger, [doctors] kind of just advised that a hotter climate would be better,” the actor said (via People). “From a young age, I’ve just had a different breathing system. But now as an adult, unless I get ill, it doesn’t really affect me as intensely as it did when I was younger.”
This isn’t the first time the “Little Women” actor mentioned the condition. In a February 2020 interview with Vogue, Pugh said that nowadays, it’s just “a very scary cough” when the condition flares up. The magazine mentioned that it’s the reason she has a raspy voice at times, and it also gave her an “uncommonly mature singing voice” as a child. We are happy that the condition hasn’t stopped her from becoming an amazing actor.
