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Jesse Eisenberg has said he is ‘so excited’ to donate his kidney to a stranger, even if he couldn’t tell you exactly why he’s doing it.
The New York-born actor, who next appears on screens in Now You See Me: Now You Don’t, was promoting the film’s third instalment on the Today Show yesterday when he made the revelation.
Initially, he was lauded by the hosts for being a ‘big blood donor’, having taken part in Today’s own blood drop.
The 42-year-old movie star then shared: ‘I’m actually donating my kidney in six weeks!’
Incredulous, the presenters asked, ‘Really?’ to which Jesse confirmed: ‘I really am.’
‘I don’t know why,’ he confessed. ‘I got bitten by the blood donation bug; I love it.’
Hailed as ‘amazing’ by the team for taking the ‘big jump up’, Jesse continued: ‘I’m doing an altruistic donation, mid-December.
‘I’m so excited to do it.’
He further joked about having ‘so much blood in [him]’ which he ‘feels like [he] should spill’.
‘No, I really like doing it. I don’t know why.’
An altruistic donation is when a person donates their organ to an unknown recipient whom they have never met. It is said that most people who donate kidneys do not have a connection with the other person in need of one.
Explaining the process in a separate interview, the Social Network star said it is ‘essentially risk-free and so needed’.
‘I think people will realise that it’s a no-brainer, if you have the time and the inclination,’ he added to Today.com.
‘Let’s say person X needs a kidney in Kansas City, and their child or whoever was going to donate to them is, for whatever set of reasons, not a match, but somehow I am.
‘That person can still get my kidney, and hopefully that child of that person still donates their kidney, right? But it goes to a bank where that person can find a match recipient, but it only works if there is basically an altruistic donor.’
Jesse first got the idea a decade ago but was met with silence when he reached out to an organisation. A doctor friend then directed him to healthcare provider NYU Langone Health.
‘I was in the hospital the next day and went through a battery of tests, and I’m now scheduled in mid-December.’
Jesse is far from the first celebrity to make headlines for organ donations, with many A-listers speaking openly about their own experiences.
Famously, Selena Gomez required a kidney transplant after suffering complications from the autoimmune disease lupus, which can cause the kidneys to become inflamed and damaged.
She had the op in 2017 when her friend and fellow actress Francia Raisa volunteered to get tested to see if she’d be a match.
Taking to Instagram after the procedure, pop star Selena shared a photo of the pals holding hands beside one another in their hospital beds, writing in the caption: ‘There aren’t words to describe how I can possibly thank my beautiful friend Francia Raisa.
‘She gave me the ultimate gift and sacrifice by donating her kidney to me. I am incredibly blessed.’
Stevie Wonder also had a kidney transplant in 2019, and Modern Family actress Sarah Hyland had two kidney transplants, one in 2012 and another in 2017.
As per the American Kidney Fund, more than 260,000 Americans are living with a kidney transplant. However, there is a shortage in donor kidneys, meaning most people must wait three to five years for a transplant.
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