The Tragic Real-Life Story Of Mayim Bialik

The following article includes references to mental health struggles, disordered eating, sexual assault allegations, and antisemitism.

Mayim Bialik first captured the hearts of television viewers in 1990, when she starred as precocious teenager Blossom Russo in the sitcom "Blossom." She bucked the trend common to child stars of that era by never getting arrested, managing to avoid rehab, and maintaining a healthy, loving relationship with her parents rather than suing them. Instead, Bialik thwarted all expectations for a child actor by enrolling in UCLA and studying neuroscience, demonstrating enough academic excellence to earn a PhD.

While it would have been understandable for Dr. Bialik to maintain a focus in science, she made another unexpected move when she joined the cast of "The Big Bang Theory," then TV's hottest sitcom. The real-life scientist played a make-believe one on the show, socially awkward Amy Farrah Fowler — a fan favorite until the series ended its run in 2019. She then headlined her own sitcom, "Call Me Kat," and made another surprising move when she was tapped as one of two revolving hosts for the iconic TV game show "Jeopardy!" 

Looking at Bialik's life from the outside, it would be easy to characterize it as charmed. However, walking hand-in-hand with all that triumph has been some serious sadness, which she's come to discuss candidly via her other unexpected role, as podcaster and social media influencer. To find out more about the dark side of her success, read on for a look at the tragic real-life story of Mayim Bialik.

Mayim Bialik first made a splash when she was cast as the childhood version of Bette Midler's character in the tearjerker "Beaches." The youngster's charisma was off the charts and led to the leading role on "Blossom." Viewers fell in love with her all over again, and the show ran for five seasons. 

Even though she was a famous child actor who starred in a hit TV series, Bialik spent those years plagued by feelings that she didn't fit in. "I don't know if I felt normal growing up," she told Yahoo! Entertainment. However, the star clarified that those feelings had less to do with being a kid actor than her experience as the child of first-generation Jewish immigrants, whose grandparents had come to America from various countries in Eastern Europe, and all lived together in a tightly knit community in the Bronx. As Bialik recalled, when she wasn't on a Hollywood soundstage, she was in an environment where English was rarely spoken, with different holidays celebrated than the ones honored by most Americans. "So nothing felt normal for me," she said. "I always felt different."

While it would be easy to assume that becoming a sitcom star would diminish those feelings, Bialik found that it actually exacerbated them. "Being on television definitely ... made me feel like more of an outsider," she said. "Being in the public eye is definitely abnormal."

When Mayim Bialik welcomed former "Blossom" co-star, Jenna von Oy, to her "Mayim Bialik's Breakdown" podcast, they discussed why the dynamics between their characters were different from those of most similar sitcoms of that era. "What was unusual about our show was that it was based around me, this female that didn't look like other girls on television," Bialik explained. As she recalled, the character was originally intended to be a boy, because at that time, there were no network TV series starring a young girl. 

"But the question is, when you have a lead character who typically is the strange-looking friend — I mean, that's really what I'm usually cast as," Bialik continued. "I'm like the quirky friend, I'm like the weird one. ... The question is, who is that person's friend on television?" As she explained, the uniqueness of the show and the singularity of its star proved baffling for the network's PR staff. "They didn't know what to do with us, and people made horrible comments about my appearance — which have never left me, since I've been 14 years old."

And it wasn't just comments that tore her heart out. Take the 1994 "Saturday Night Live" sketch spoofing "Blossom," in which cast member Melanie Hutsell wore a large prosthetic nose to impersonate Bialik. "I hoped no one noticed," Bialik wrote in an essay for Variety. "All of my friends at high school watched 'SNL.' It wasn't subtle. They would all see it and I felt ashamed."

While it would be easy to assume that Mayim Bialik walked away from five seasons of "Blossom" with a bulging bank account, that simply wasn't the case. "People in the era that we were on television did not make the kind of money that people make now," she explained during an episode of her "Mayim Bialik's Breakdown" podcast. 

In fact, she said, at that time television salaries in general were lower — but even more so when it came to a female minor in a sitcom that performed reasonably well but was never a critical darling or ratings blockbuster. "When I went to college, I was not an independently wealthy, I-never-have-to-work-again person," Bialik explained. In fact, she struggled to make enough money to put herself through school, experiencing the kind of financial constraints one wouldn't expect for a television star. "I tutored, I did all the things that people do to make ends meet. I budgeted," the former child star explained. "... We did not make the kind of money that set us up for the entire universe."

Bialik elaborated during an appearance on Jaleel White's "Ever Actor" podcast. "I think what's important for people to realize is ... I did not have the kind of financial success that would've set me up for the rest of my life. Also, our show was never put into syndication," she said, confirming that her modest "Blossom" salary earned her less than six figures a year.

In August 2012, Mayim Bialik was driving in Los Angeles when her car was struck by another vehicle. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the accident left her with "severe lacerations to her left hand and thumb," bad enough that she was taken to a nearby hospital to see if surgery was warranted. Later that same day, she issued a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, to update fans on her condition. "In pain but will keep all my fingers," the actor shared.

Bialik subsequently spoke with Vanity Fair about her injury: "Obviously it's been difficult to go [through] something so publicly, and not just because someone is videotaping you the second they see a car accident — because that's what people do these days!" While she admitted her heart was warmed by all the love she'd received from fans, Bialik also emphasized that she didn't want her injury to become fodder for "Entertainment Tonight" and the like. "It's been so nice to see people's concern," she said, "but it's also important to me to keep some of my recovery private as well." Bialik did, however, share an update with E! News, declaring, "My poor little hand is working in a very different way than it's used to. But it's doing okay."

A few months later, Bialik set the record straight after TMZ reported that the accident had nearly cost her hand. "I did not almost lose my hand," she told E! News that October.

In 2003, Mayim Bialik married Michael Stone. The couple went on to have two sons together. Sadly, the marriage wasn't destined to be a long-lasting one. By late 2012, their relationship had run its course; writing in a blog post for her Kveller website, Bialik announced that she and Stone, after much soul searching, had decided it was time to go their separate ways. "Divorce is terribly sad, painful, and incomprehensible for children," she wrote. "It is not something we have decided lightly." Their main priority, the star explained, was to ensure a smooth transition for their kids into their new living situation, which would mean shuttling back and forth between Bialik's and Stone's respective homes while the two exes shared co-parenting duties. "We will be [okay]," she added.

A few weeks after making the announcement, Bialik opened up about how her new normal was progressing. "It's going okay," she told Us Weekly, crediting Stone for joining her in putting their kids first and foremost in the equation. "It's not easy," the actor added, "but we're doing okay, so thank God."

Several years later, the system they'd put in place appeared to be working out for both ex-spouses and their children. "I'm so incredibly grateful, not only for my ex-husband, but for all of the work that we've put in to be able to have the kind of conversations we have to have," Bialik told Us Weekly in 2020.

While Mayim Bialik is the mother of two, she'd always dreamed of having a substantially larger brood. "So, I wanted lots of kids," she revealed in a 2018 YouTube video, joking about her dreams of being the mother of a football team. Imagining herself presiding over massive family Thanksgivings surrounded by all those loving children, the arrival of her first child poked a hole in that fantasy. As Bialik detailed, her first son was happy and easygoing — so long as she nursed him and gave him the constant attention he demanded, describing her eldest son's clingy personality type as a "Velcro baby." 

When she became pregnant with her second son, Bialik assumed this kid would be different. However, he was also of the Velcro variety, and she found herself with two kids who wanted all of her attention, all of the time. "And so, at 33, with a toddler and a baby who still needed me tremendously, I decided that I was done having babies," she said.

As Bialik recounted, this was a difficult decision that came after a lot of consideration and more than a few tears. "I cried about it a lot, because I didn't want to be done," she admitted. "I wanted to do the thing that I set out to do. ... I wanted 11 children — why didn't God give me the patience to have 11 children?" Ultimately, Bialik admitted, "There is a lot of regret."

As previously mentioned — and as fans of Mayim Bialik well know — after the end of "Blossom," she went on to earn a PhD in neuroscience from UCLA. Meanwhile, she never truly exited Hollywood, maintaining a steady roster of screen roles — mainly TV guest spots — throughout the 2000s. In 2010, one of those guest-starring roles propelled her to the biggest showbiz success she'd ever experienced when she was cast as Amy Farrah Fowler, love interest and eventual spouse of Sheldon Cooper (Jim Parsons), on "The Big Bang Theory."

While she eventually became a series regular on the mega-hit sitcom, that was the furthest thing from Bialik's mind when she auditioned. During an appearance on the Canadian talk show "The Social" (as reported by the Independent), the actor revealed that her health insurance was about to run out, but felt she'd qualify for SAG-AFTRA union health insurance if she could nab enough acting roles. "And I figured if I can just get even a couple jobs like here or there, I'll be able to get insurance again," she recalled.

While "The Big Bang Theory" wound up becoming her most successful project, her experience on the show nevertheless proved to be nerve-racking for her. "With acting stuff, my level of anxiety surrounding performing is very, very high," Bialik explained during an episode of "Mayim Bialik's Breakdown," describing how she'd feel a knot in her throat if she felt she wasn't doing a scene just right.

As the daughter of first-generation immigrants to America, Mayim Bialik grew up in a close, tight-knit family. In April 2015, she shared some truly tragic news with her fans in a blog post for her Kveller site: her father had died, following two months in hospice care. "We knew it was coming," the star wrote. "We had months to process and love and grieve and rage at God and all of that."

Still, losing her beloved father was understandably difficult for Bialik. In fact, the feelings that his death stirred up for her were so powerful and lingering that the experience inspired her on an artistic level. The result was the 2022 movie "As They Made Us." Not only did the project represent Bialik's first time directing a feature film, it also told a deeply personal story, inspired by what she and her family went through with her father's death. "There's a year of grieving in traditional Judaism," Bialik told Yahoo! Entertainment. "After that year, it's kind of like a veil lifts." 

In the quasi-autobiographical film (for which Bialik co-wrote the screenplay), "Glee" alum Dianna Agron plays a divorced single mom coping with taking care of not only her kids, but also her parents (who are portrayed by Candice Bergen and Dustin Hoffman) as they get older. The film's themes, Bialik explained, resonated profoundly. "Death is not difficult, but dying is," she said. "There is nothing harder than nursing your parent as they die."

Mayim Bialik has been no stranger to controversy, and she's frequently been attacked online. She referenced that in a 2017 Facebook post. "my life right now: people hate me because i am a Jew and a Zionist," she wrote. "other people hate me because of my solidarity with Muslims. seems that mostly white heterosexual non-Jewish males hate me most. interesting."

Of course, she's also been the target of online abuse due to incendiary statements she's made. One of these came in her 2012 book "Beyond the Sling," in which she wrote about why she and her then-husband refused to have their children vaccinated. After being pilloried on social media when the topic resurfaced eight years later, Bialik posted a lengthy YouTube video clarifying her stance.

Bialik also took heat on social media for an essay she wrote for The New York Times in the wake of multiple sexual assault allegations against Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein, noting that her "nontraditional" looks allowed her to avoid Weinstein-like scenarios of sexual predation. She was quickly hit with backlash for seemingly blaming the victim, implying that a woman's assault was caused by her beauty. Bialik responded via tweet, writing in part, "I also see a bunch of people have taken my words out of the context of the Hollywood machine and twisted them to imply that God forbid I would blame a woman for her assault based on her clothing or behavior. Anyone who knows me and my feminism knows that's absurd."

Not only has Mayim Bialik been open about the anxiety she feels while acting, she's also detailed the personal issues with mental health that she's experienced throughout her life. "I've struggled with mental illness really my whole life and have started becoming more vocal about it," Bialik revealed in 2021, per Yahoo! Life. Opening up about her mental health struggles, she added, was her way of bringing an often-stigmatized topic out into the open. "It does make a difference in breaking that stigma and allowing people to see that mental health, it does not discriminate," she explained. "There's no amount of money that makes you immune."

In addition to anxiety, Bialik's own mental health struggles have manifested in obsessive-compulsive disorder, more commonly known as OCD. "So, the obsession is the internalizing aspect, and the compulsion is the externalizing aspect," she said during a "Mayim Bialik's Breakdown" conversation with actor Mara Wilson during her podcast.

In a video PSA for Child Mind Institute, Bialik explained that she grew up with OCD and still copes with it as an adult. "One of the things that made my life really difficult was trying new things, and it's still really hard for me," she admitted. However, Bialik added, learning to be able to put her trust in others and accept their support has made all the difference. "You can make changes and still be okay," she stated.

In 2021, Mayim Bialik made another announcement regarding her mental health. During a discussion with author Glennon Doyle on her "Mayim Bialik's Breakdown" podcast, she declared, "I publicly identify as someone with an eating disorder."

Also in the video, Bialik said, "I eat too much when no one's looking," and then admitted, "I'm eating so I don't have to feel anything." According to the actor, "This is the first time I've ever talked about it, because people are like, 'Well, why are you so overweight?' Well, because I'm a compulsive overeater, in addition to being an anorexic and restricter." She also revealed that she'd undergone treatment for her eating disorders and had been in recovery for about two years at that point.

In a subsequent interview with People, Bialik explained that she hadn't actually planned on going public with her eating disorder but decided to open up due to Doyle's personal revelations about her own similar struggles. "There's no quick fix for brain health. There just isn't," she said of why she felt it was important to discuss her struggles publicly. "We have to do ongoing things that support overall brain health."

After "The Big Bang Theory" ended after 12 enormously successful seasons, Mayim Bialik returned to television with the Fox sitcom "Call Me Kat." Marking her first time starring in a TV series since "Blossom," the show — about a socially awkward woman who runs a cat-friendly cafe — connected with viewers, ultimately airing for three seasons until its cancellation in May 2023.

Most of the show's viewers would be in agreement that the secret weapon of "Call Me Kat" was the late Leslie Jordan, the diminutive comic actor who'd sparkled in several series ranging from "Will & Grace" to "American Horror Story." When Jordan died unexpectedly in a car accident in October 2022, not only did the show feel the loss, but Bialik herself was personally devastated. "They broke the mold when they made Leslie Jordan," she wrote in an Instagram tribute. "He was a dear mentor and a beloved friend. I will miss him so much — it's unimaginable that he's gone."

Bialik addressed her grief over Jordan's passing during an appearance on "The Jennifer Hudson Show," revealing that she learned of his death while on the "Call Me Kat" set, awaiting his arrival for a scene they were scheduled to appear in together. "It was a sudden thing," she said. "We were all at work and waiting for him to show up at work, so it was very, very, very complicated to have the whole crew there and the whole cast. And, you know, we were a family."

While "Call Me Kat" following "The Big Bang Theory" was sort of like a comeback upon a comeback for Mayim Bialik, her career took an even more unexpected turn in late 2021, when she and Ken Jennings were announced as permanent hosts of "Jeopardy!" The two alternated the role most famously held by the late Alex Trebek — until December 2023, when Bialik revealed that she'd been fired. "Sony has informed me that I will no longer be hosting the syndicated version of 'Jeopardy!'" she stated in part via Instagram. Sony Television confirmed that she'd been shown the door, issuing a statement reading, "We made the decision to have one host for the syndicated show next season to maintain continuity for our viewers."

Could there be more to the decision than "continuity," though? The day before she announced her firing, Bialik shared a very different Instagram post, in which she and author Noa Tishby played a controversial game of "You Might Be an Antisemite If," declaring certain opinions about the Israel-Hamas conflict to be antisemitic. While she received numerous comments of support, the actor was also hit with backlash from those with opposing views.

While neither Sony nor Bialik has confirmed nor denied that video had anything to do with her firing, there's no denying that the timing was curious. However, Sony's Instagram statement was likewise hit with comments, claiming the studio's decision itself was steeped in antisemitism.

If you or anyone you know needs help with mental health, is struggling with an eating disorder, or has been a victim of sexual assault, contact the relevant resources below:

• The Crisis Text Line by texting HOME to 741741, call the National Alliance on Mental Illness helpline at 1-800-950-NAMI (6264), or visit the National Institute of Mental Health website.

• The National Eating Disorders Association website or contact NEDA's Live Helpline at 1-800-931-2237. You can also receive 24/7 Crisis Support via text (send NEDA to 741-741).

• The Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network website or contact RAINN's National Helpline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673).