Actor and comedian Adam DeVine has spoken out about the long-term health challenges he continues to face decades after a traumatic childhood accident involving a cement truck.
The 41-year-old “Righteous Gemstones” star was hit by a 42-ton cement truck at age 11 while crossing the street with two friends.
He described the past year as “a nightmare,” revealing that he has been experiencing unexplained muscle spasms that have disrupted his daily life and raised serious medical concerns.
“For a while, they told me I was dying. Literally within this last year they told me that,” DeVine said in the interview, published on April 2.
“They told me I had this disease called stiff-person syndrome. And that’s when your muscles get so tight that you can no longer walk. You can no longer move, then your heart will stop beating, because your heart is a muscle and it gets too tight to beat and then you die.”
DeVine, who has a 1-year-old son named Beau with his wife, actress Chloe Bridges, said he received the alarming diagnosis just weeks before his son was born. “And so I’m like, ‘Oh great, now I’m gonna die,’” he said.
DeVine said he was eventually referred to a specialist regarded as the leading expert on stiff-person syndrome—a rare neurological and autoimmune disorder that singer Céline Dion was diagnosed with in 2022.
“And he’s like, ‘You don’t have it,’” DeVine recounted. “He’s like, ‘This is from your accident, from when you were a child. The spasms are a little unexplainable, but it could just be you got so tight that your body doesn’t know what to do with it. So you’re misfiring a little bit.’”
Now DeVine is still experiencing physical repercussions, including chronic tightness and spasms. He said the symptoms worsened in recent years and may have been exacerbated by intense physical activity during the COVID-19 pandemic.
DeVine’s Career
DeVine was born on Nov. 7, 1983, in Waterloo, Iowa, and raised in Omaha, Nebraska. He attended Millard South High School and later studied at Orange Coast College in Southern California before pursuing a career in entertainment.He began his career in comedy in 2006 as a member of the sketch group Mail Order Comedy, which gained a following on YouTube. In 2011, he co-created and starred in “Workaholics,” a Comedy Central series that ran for seven seasons. The show followed three friends working at a telemarketing company and was known for its offbeat humor. DeVine portrayed the character Adam DeMamp and also served as a writer and producer.
He gained further recognition for his role as Bumper Allen in 2012’s “Pitch Perfect” and its sequel “Pitch Perfect 2” (2015). His performance earned him an MTV Movie and TV Award and a nomination for a Teen Choice Award.
DeVine expanded his television work with a recurring role on ABC’s “Modern Family” as Andy Bailey from 2013 to 2016. He also created and starred in “Adam DeVine’s House Party,” a stand-up comedy and sketch show on Comedy Central.
In film, DeVine has appeared in comedies such as 2016’s “Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates,” as well as 2018’s “When We First Met” and “Game Over, Man!” with the latter also co-written and produced by him. He has also contributed voice work to animated films, including “Ice Age: Collision Course” (2016), “The Lego Batman Movie” (2017), and “Green Eggs and Ham” (2019–2022) on Netflix.
Since 2019, he has played Kelvin Gemstone on HBO’s “The Righteous Gemstones,” a critically acclaimed comedy-drama about a family of televangelists.
