HEALING TOGETHER Kim and Ireland's Crippling disorder
New Zealand Woman's Weekly|May 23, 2022
Living in the spotlight has been a challenge for the celebrity-shy pair
HEALING TOGETHER Kim and Ireland's Crippling disorder

From the outside, it seems Kim Basinger and her model daughter Ireland Baldwin have it all - beauty, wealth and fame. But the Hollywood mother-daughter duo have opened up about their heartbreaking battles with anxiety.

“It was really horrible,” Oscar-winner Kim, 68, shared recently about the agoraphobia she has suffered from since the '80s.

Agoraphobia is an anxiety disorder in which people fear and avoid places or situations that might cause them to feel trapped, helpless or embarrassed, and the LA Confidential star revealed on chat show Red Table Talk that she had her first serious brush with it when she was shopping at her neighbourhood health food store in California.

"My basket was almost full and I found something really overcoming me in such a way that I couldn't breathe," she recalls. “So, I left the basket and I made it to my car. That was the last time I drove for almost six, seven months.

The mother-of-one says after that she couldn't even leave her house or have people over.

“Everything made me nervous," she tells. "It's like something shuts down in you and you have to relearn everything. I had to relearn to drive. You live with a dry mouth all the time; you're very shaky. You're just so exhausted all the time.”

Kim and Ireland opened up on Jada Pinkett Smith's show.

These days, the 942 Weeks star has her anxiety under control, but it will always be a part of her. And it's something Ireland, her daughter with 30 Rock star Alec Baldwin, has also had to deal with.

Kim and Alec, 64, went through a highly publicized divorce in 2002, which saw them locked in a bitter custody battle over Ireland, who was just seven at the time.

This story is from the May 23, 2022 edition of New Zealand Woman's Weekly.

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This story is from the May 23, 2022 edition of New Zealand Woman's Weekly.

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