‘The Boys’ Star Erin Moriarty Thought She Was “Dying” While Filming

With Starlight getting her happy ever after in The Boys finale, Erin Moriarty is opening up about the realities of being mortal.

The actress, who shared her Graves’ disease diagnosis last year while filming the fifth and final season of the Prime Video series, detailed the “physical hell of chronic illness” she faced while filming the Eric Kripke-created show’s conclusion.

“Eventually, my doctors referred me to a neurologist,” she wrote in an op-ed for Time, recalling her search for a diagnosis. “By that point, I was preparing myself for the possibility that I was dying. I was in so much discomfort that the idea of death felt like a potential relief. Death felt less terrifying than living in that state indefinitely.”

Moriarty added, “These symptoms struck me as I was filming the final season of The Boys and more in the public eye than ever. I was going through the physical hell of chronic illness on a public stage. Doing it in private is emotionally damaging enough, but to have my physical symptoms be speculated about, trivialized, and dismissed was devastating.”

Portraying the superhero also known as Annie January, Moriarty noted that the role “has meant more to me than I can ever articulate. But while filming our precious final season in 2025, I lost her. I lost myself. 

“The symptoms of my illness, still undiagnosed, created a distance between me and the character I had spent years pouring myself into,” she continued. “My memory was failing me. My body felt unfamiliar. My emotional presence, something I had always protected and valued fiercely as an actor, became increasingly difficult to access.”

Moriarty added that she hopes her transparency “can help even one person catch their illness earlier than I caught mine.”

Last June, Moriarty revealed her diagnosis with Graves’ disease, an autoimmune disorder that affects the thyroid gland, with wide-ranging symptoms that can include heat sensitivity, weight loss, tremors, irregular heartbeat and potentially Graves’ ophthalmopathy, which includes eye issues like bulging eyes, light sensitivity and eye pressure or irritation.

“Autoimmune disease manifests differently in everybody/every body. Your experience will be different from mine. My experience will be different from yours. Perhaps greatly, perhaps minutely,” wrote Moriarty at the time. “One thing I can say: if I hadn’t chalked it all up to stress and fatigue, I would’ve caught this sooner. A month ago, I was diagnosed with Graves’ disease. Within 24 hours of beginning treatment, I felt the light coming back on. It’s been increasing in strength ever since. If yours is dimming, even slightly, go get checked. Don’t ‘suck it up’ and transcend suffering; you deserve to be comfy. Shit’s hard enough as is.”