Kim Basinger Didn’t Leave House For Years Due To Agoraphobia

Actress Kim Basinger revealed her struggles with an anxiety disorder that has left her unwilling to leave the house for years at the worst points of it.

“I wouldn’t leave the house, I would no longer go to dinner,” she told Red Table Talk hosts Jada Pinkett-Smith, Willow Smith and Adrienne Banfield-Norris. The L.A. Confidential star also shared that one of the hardest parts was to be suffering from it and still “not know what it was.” After shutting herself off from the world, Basinger said, “You have to relearn everything. I had to relearn to drive.”

She described her condition as feeling like “everything used to make me nervous, like the glass going to open the door, or where do I step to open the door? Everything became a big job to figure out how to do it.”

Even the interview itself was a milestone for the actress, who hadn’t been interviewed in 14 years.

Agoraphobia arises after a person begins suffering from increased anxiety and panic attacks, and causes people suffering from it to intently avoid places that stir up feelings of anxiety from that, to more or less extreme degrees.

Basinger, who appeared on the show with her daughter Ireland Baldwin, also touched on her divorce and brutal multi-year custody battle with Alec Baldwin. “He’s a challenge,” Basinger said frankly, and when she began struggling with anxiety she said, “I don’t think Alec was emotionally or mentally available for that kind of talk.”

Ireland spoke up for a moment to add that Baldwin was “someone who grew up in a family that would suppress that as well. Or tell him he’s weak for feeling that way.”