The Boys star Erin Moriarty responds to violent attacks on her appearance

Prime Video

Erin Moriarty, here in season 3 of “The Boys”.

Starlight sets the record straight. As the ultimate season of Prime Video’s phenomenon series “The Boys” is currently airing on the platform, the actress portraying its heroine, Erin Moriarty, spoke out on Instagram on Thursday, April 23, to clarify certain aspects of the debilitating disease she suffers from.

“Well, then: episode 4 of season 5 is one of the most important episodes I’ve ever shot,” the actress shared in a story. “Unfortunately, this part of the season coincided with the peak of my health problems before my diagnosis. I spare you the rawest part of this photo, but shortly after this episode, I started losing the ability to walk.”

In a message shared on social media in June 2025, Erin Moriarty revealed she had been diagnosed with Basedow’s disease, a rare autoimmune condition that results in hyperthyroidism, where the thyroid produces more hormones than necessary.

“I tore my knee”

This overproduction causes various symptoms, such as weight loss, heart problems, sweating, or menstrual irregularities in menstruating patients. This can be accompanied by a change in appearance, including a goiter (abnormal enlargement of the gland) and exophthalmos, where one or both eyes protrude from their sockets.

“The numbness in my feet caused me to fall multiple times. The day before filming my part of this episode, I fell and tore my knee,” explained the Starlight actress on Thursday. “I have almost no backstage photos from this season, especially since things got worse.”

Erin Moriarty, here on Instagram.

She continues: “This is not a tearful message. It’s mostly to say: ‘Screw you, autoimmune diseases. Really screw you. And screw the ignorance surrounding them too.’ I can’t fix that ignorance, but not talking about it openly from time to time seems like a bad thing to me.”

Erin Moriarty subject to attacks

What is she referring to here? Not a word. However, as Erin Moriarty is regularly the target of violent attacks regarding her body in the series (too stiff, for some) and her face (too altered, for others) for several seasons, it’s hard not to see a reference.

Online, there are plenty of photo montages of the actress, comparing her appearance between season 1 and the latest one. Internet users “have created mean memes comparing her to The Weeknd, when he wore prostheses in his video ‘Save Your Tears’,” a Cosmopolitan article also notes.

In 2024, a famous TV host named Megyn Kelly even went so far as to suggest that Erin Moriarty may have an “addiction” to plastic surgery. “More and more young women are doing this,” the presenter stated at the time. “I find it resembles a sign of mental illness. I would really like to get inside the heads of these young girls and tell them: ‘Please, don’t do this.’“

“It’s like I was offline”

To which Erin Moriarty took the time to respond, saying she was horrified by “such a revolting and counterproductive false information that it becomes ironically misogynistic.” She added, “The comments were harsh enough for me to decide to disable them (on social media, editor’s note). It’s harassment. It’s misinformation,” she emphasized.

Today, she fully intends to speak openly about her illness. “I have no hesitation about this,” she recently told the Hollywood Reporter, expressing her disappointment at not being able to get as involved as she wanted to for her character in the latest season. “It’s like I was offline for the first six or seven episodes,” she said.

She added, “It was only from episode 7 that I managed to overcome the physical and mental consequences that this disease had inflicted on me. This demonstrates the profound impact that autoimmune diseases can have, and I don’t think people are fully aware of it.” Looking forward to episode 8.