Miss France 2024 reveals that she has suffered from a rare illness since childhood.
She had until now kept the secret: Eve Gilles, Miss France 2024, announces that she has suffered from a rare neurological disease since childhood, on Konbini, this Saturday, October 26. “I have an invisible illness, but I know how to live with it. And I live very well with it,” she says.
This is paroxysmal dyskinesia, which affects between one person in 150,000 and one person in 1 million. The disease results in a loss of control of certain limbs, notably the arms, legs and even the face. “These are movements that I do not control for a certain time, between 25 and 40 seconds,” explains Miss France. “When I was 8 years old, I felt that I didn’t control my body over certain movements. It was in basketball, when we had to do accelerations at the end of the session, I felt that I didn’t control what I was doing. So I I talked to my father about it, I told him: ‘I have tics, I can’t control it, I don’t do it on purpose.’, relates Miss France.
Crises gone unnoticed during Miss France and the Olympic Games
Paroxysmal dyskinesia is invisible in Eve Gilles, who has been under treatment since the age of 14, the year doctors put a word on her symptoms. But sometimes he has seizures. “When I have a crisis, I close my eyes,” she explains. “When I feel my eyes going, I don’t want to be seen like that.” But the young woman quickly manages to control these episodes: “I even had a seizure during a coronation,” she confides. Another episode took place during the Olympic Games. “Every time, no one sees it,” she assures.
Eve Gilles did not want to reveal her illness before the election of Miss France 2024. “I wanted very few people to know about it because it was an illness that took up a lot of space for me when I was little. I didn’t want her to define me as a woman and as a Miss,” she defends. “I didn’t want to be elected because I’m this poor little girl with this illness. I don’t see my illness as a defect” explains Miss France, who claims to see it as “a strength that made me grow “.