You're not alone

If you or someone you know is feeling reluctant about wearing a hearing aid, just knowing you’re in good company may help get you over the line. From the basketball court to the red carpet, we’ve done some digging to source a handful of hearing aid-wearing celebrities so you know you’re not going it alone.

Oscar-winning actress Jodie Foster is well known for her varied roles, from Silence of the Lambs to Panic Room. But what’s perhaps lesser known is her experience with hearing loss. Spotted on numerous occasions wearing a hearing aid to assist in what she referred to in a media interview as her “hearing loss thing”, Foster certainly hasn’t let them hold her back when it comes to her career.

If you haven’t seen Lance Allred’s TedX talk at Salt Lake City from 2016, grab a coffee and hit play. The first legally deaf NBA player in history, Lance speaks about not letting your perceptions shape your reality. And with a unique upbringing in a polygamist commune in rural Montana, his psychological boundaries are certainly a little more out there than others.

Way back in the LA Times archives is a news article where Bill Clinton’s physician announces the then 51-year-old President of the United States had been fitted for hearing aids in both ears as a result of a high-frequency hearing deficiency. Luckily for most of us, our transition to hearing aids doesn’t attract the same sort of headlines.

The life of a rockstar involves being around seriously loud music, and when The Who smashed records for the epic volume at their concerts, frontman Peter Townshend bore the brunt. Discussing his tinnitus and hearing loss as a result with David Letterman, also a fellow tinnitus sufferer, he’s now an advocate for adequate hearing protection for musicians.

Back to thespian territory, the late Leslie Nielsen of The Naked Gun series was a prominent advocate for hearing heath. Legally deaf and a long-time wearer of hearing aids, Canadian-born Nielsen suffered from a sensorineural hearing loss and alongside his flourishing acting career, lent huge support to the Better Hearing Institute in the United States.