A former child star reveals why he stepped away from Hollywood after a series of high-profile roles in the 1990s.
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Brandon Hammond, a child actor known for ’90s films like Space Jam, Waiting to Exhale, Menace II Society, and Mars Attacks!, seemingly vanished from screens by the decade’s end, still in his teens.
In a new interview with PEOPLE, Hammond revealed that at age 13, during the success of Soul Food, he received alarming health news.
“I was diagnosed with this super, super rare, autoimmune condition called Castleman disease,” he told the outlet.
The Mayo Clinic defines Castleman disease as a group of disorders involving an overactive immune system.
“I had all these chest pains, and my eye was flushed out red, just all types of physiological things were happening to me that we could not explain,” he recalled. “And I was traveling all over — to Baltimore, to the National Institute of Health, to Cincinnati Children’s Hospital, Cedars-Sinai, UCLA, USC, and could not figure things out.”
He recalled that just before his diagnosis, he and the team behind the 1997 classic Soul Food had an incredible night at the 1998 NAACP Image Awards, where the film won four awards, including one for him and another for Outstanding Motion Picture.
Former Child Star Brandon Hammond Recalled How Agents Told Him to Keep His Medical Diagnosis Secret
However, a few months later, he was “fighting for my life, basically.” He made only a few more on-camera appearances over the next several years, including on the TV shows The West Wing and Early Edition.
Now 41, the former child star revealed that people often ask him what happened, but he usually gives “vague” answers, as he prefers not to discuss it. He also claimed that his agents discouraged him from talking about it.
“I was kind of told not to talk about it,” Hammond explained. “Of course, in hindsight, I regret that, right? But I was just following what I was told to do. My agents told me to keep it under wraps.”
He is now speaking out while creating a reunion documentary, Sunday Dinner: The Soul Food Reunion. This film was inspired by similar tributes to ’90s favorites like The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air and Friends.