The Righteous Gemstones actor Adam DeVine has opened up about a scary situation where he was misdiagnosed with Stiff Person Syndrome (SPS), twice!
DeVine spoke about the topic in a recent interview with Parade, revealing that a childhood accident led to the misdiagnosis. “When I was a kid, I had a bad accident, and that’s when I was 11. I was hit by a cement truck, and I couldn’t walk for a couple years after that,” he shared.
He added, “They told me on two separate occasions that they think I have [SPS] because I have one of the markers for it, and I have another thing that was a predisposition for having Stiff Person Syndrome.”
According to the Cleveland Clinic, “Stiff person syndrome is a rare, chronic condition that causes muscle stiffness and painful muscle spasms. The severity of symptoms varies from person to person. There’s no cure for stiff person syndrome, but treatment can help manage symptoms and slow the progression of the condition.”
The rare condition came into the public light in December 2022 when Céline Dion revealed she’d been diagnosed with SPS. Prime Video released the documentary, I Am: Céline Dion, in June 2024, detailing the singer’s battles with the condition as she hoped to return to touring.
DeVine told the outlet, “After doing more tests, they’ve come to the conclusion that I do not have Stiff Person Syndrome, and these are just residual effects from my childhood accident coming to fruition, I guess. So I don’t have it, luckily.”
“It was a scary diagnosis to almost get, or to actually get twice, especially right before my son was born [in 2024],” he continued. “It was pretty terrifying, but I’m happy to say that I do not have Stiff Person Syndrome.”
DeVine, who rose to fame on the Comedy Central sitcom Workaholics alongside his co-writers/co-stars Blake Anderson and Anders Holm, previously opened up about his brush with death in a 2016 interview with Entertainment Weekly.
“We were gonna go get candy. And also rip pages out of Penthouse. That was a real agenda,” he recalled of himself and his friends heading to the store. “One buddy was across the street. He yelled ‘Come on!’ as in ‘I’m excited to go look at boobs!’ And I heard ‘Come on!’ as in ‘The coast is clear!’”
As he walked his bike onto the road, DeVine was hit by a cement truck. “They say the reason I lived was the bike took the hit first,” he explained. “I still slid 500 feet. Picked me up under the first two wheels and then spit me out… I’m glad that it happened to me,” he added. “It really gave me a driving force.”