Here's Why Mark Ruffalo Withheld His Brain Tumor Diagnosis From His Wife Sunrise Coigney

When Mark Ruffalo spoke on the SmartLess podcast on Monday, January 22, he talked about his choice to keep his wife in the dark about his startling brain tumor diagnosis. When Mark Ruffalo spoke on the SmartLess podcast on Monday, January 22, he talked about his choice to keep his wife in the dark about his startling brain tumor diagnosis. He clarified that "the baby was imminently coming" at the time, since his wife Sunrise Coigney, now 51, was nine months pregnant with their oldest child, Keen, now 22.

As reported by US Magazine, Ruffalo revealed, "I had one of those 4 a.m. calls and I woke up probably around 3 a.m. and I just had this crazy dream. And it wasn’t like any other dream I’d ever had. It was just like, ‘You have a brain tumor.’ It wasn’t even a voice. It was just pure knowledge, ‘You have a brain tumor, and you have to deal with it immediately.’" Even though Ruffalo claimed that his sole symptom was an ear infection, he saw the doctor right after following his dream. He recalled, "I said, ‘Listen, this is going to sound crazy, but I had this dream last night that I had a brain tumor.’" The actor went on to say that after getting the scan read at the neurologist's office, the nurse confronted the physician.

He added, "She comes in and she’s just kind of, like, a zombie. You have a mass behind your left ear the size of a golf ball. We don’t know what it is, we can’t tell until it’s biopsied.’" He continued, saying that he eventually waited until a week after their kid was born to reveal the news to Coigney. He went on to say, "When I told Sunny about it, first she thought I was joking. And then she just burst into tears and said, 'I always knew you were gonna die young.'" Although the tumor proved to be benign, much to Coigney's relief, the removal operation had unintended repercussions. He shared, "When I woke up, the left side of my face was totally paralyzed, like I couldn’t even close my eye. They said to me I had like, I had a 20% chance of nicking my nerve on the left side of my face and killing it and then I had a 70% chance of losing my hearing, which went."

Since the late 1990s, Ruffalo and his wife Coigney have been together, and their bond has only become stronger with time. The Avengers star thought the buddy they shared in common may have also had a thing for Coigney. The two happened to meet in 1998 while strolling around Los Angeles. When they initially got together, Ruffalo was a struggling actor without a credit card or driver's license who lived in a converted garage. Even though he wasn't successful at the time, the native of Louisiana thought her future companion had the ability. In 2000, after two years of courtship, the couple exchanged vows.