Aubrey Plaza Recalls Having a Stroke at 20: 'It Was Terrifying'

Aubrey Plaza is detailing the "terrifying" experience of having a stroke when she was in college. During an appearance on Wednesday's episode of The Howard Stern Show, the actress recalled suffering a stroke when she was a 20-year-old student at New York University. "It was a freak thing," began Plaza, now 40. "The craziest thing about it was -- and the kind of coolest thing about it -- [was] it happened mid-sentence." "I took the train to Astoria to have lunch with my friends, and I walked into their apartment ― I hadn’t even taken my jacket off, and in mid-sentence, it just happened," she continued. "That's when I was paralyzed, but really only for a minute or something. I lost my motor skills really briefly. The freakiest thing was that I forgot how to talk." The Parks and Recreation alum said that one thing she learned from having a store is that "your brain is not you." "There was me, and then there was my brain that was malfunctioning," she recalled. "And that was the moment where I went 'Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa! How am I conscious that my brain can't say these words when me as me knows what the answer is?'" "The paramedics were asking me questions, and me as me, whatever that is, soul me, higher me, whatever me is, was going, 'The answer is yogurt.' They're going like, 'What'd you have for breakfast?' And I'm going in my head, 'Say yogurt, brain. Say the word yogurt,'" Plaza continued. "And I couldn't do it, so it was terrifying," she added. "I thought I'd never speak again. But it was also kind of like, Oh, wait a minute. There's more going on here because I'm watching my brain malfunction." As for what caused her stroke, Plaza said doctors believed that it was due to her birth control. While some hormonal contraceptives that contain estrogen can slightly increase the risk of stroke, the overall risk is low. The Megapolis star has opened up about health scare in the past. During an interview with NPR's Fresh Air back in 2017, Plaza shared that her friends thought she was "making a joke" when, in reality, she was having a stroke. "I was always doing something stupid," she recalled at the time. "But then after a couple of minutes, they kept saying, 'Do you want us to call an ambulance?' and I was aware enough to shake my head yes. I kept just shaking my head yes because I knew something was really, really wrong. But I didn't know what it was, and I couldn't talk." The White Lotus star said when the paramedics arrived they "didn't assume" she had a stroke because she was "so young." "They were thinking that I was dehydrated. And I really think they thought I was on drugs because they kept asking me if I'd taken drugs, and I hadn't," she explained. "I hadn't really put anything into my body that day and -- except for birth control." Plaza said she was taken to a hospital in Queens, adding that she "couldn't talk" and "couldn't write." "Then a doctor finally examined me, and I believe she asked me to put my right hand on my left knee. And I couldn't do it," she recalled. "I was confused about right and left. And I think that's when everyone realized, 'Oh, like, she had a stroke.'" She said she was taken to the stroke unit, before later being transferred to a hospital near her family. "There was no recovery. I mean, when you have a stroke, you have a stroke," Plaza said. "There's nothing you can do about it. Your brain has to heal itself. And that part of the blood clot area in my brain will never be healed. It's a tiny, little black hole in my brain. So I had some cognitive, you know, therapy that I went to. I went back to school in the fall."