‘Stranger Things’ Star Gaten Matarazzo Opens Up About Genetic Disorder
The Stranger Things kids have been on an endless promo tour, elevating the show’s undeniable popularity. And star Gaten Matarazzo is using his platform to open up about a rare health condition that affects his daily life.
Accompanied by his co-stars, Millie Bobby Brown and Caleb McLaughlin, Matarazzo — who plays Dustin Henderson on the Netflix original series — detailed his experience about living with cleidocranial dysplasia during a recent interview on The Jonathan Ross Show.
“It’s a condition where you’re born without your collarbones,” he began. “I don’t have any. It affects your facial growth, your skull growth, your teeth — that’s why I don’t have any, these are fake right here. I have teeth, but they’re all baby teeth. I need a lot of surgery.”
Matarazza continued, noting that he has a mild case of the congenital disorder.
“I have a really mild case and a lot of people have it much worse than I do,” he told Ross. “I feel like putting it into the show has really raised awareness for it. And I’m lucky that mine is very mild, but now that it’s in my genes… it’s usually passed on by genes, [but] it wasn’t for me, it just happened. So now that it’s in my genes, I have a 50 percent chance of passing it down in my genes and it could be much worse for them.”
“I just wanna raise awareness for it and let people know it’s not something that they should be afraid of showing,” he finished.
Check out the video of the Stranger Things cast on The Jonathan Ross Show above.
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