‘Tulsa King’ Star Max Casella Reveals He Didn’t Reach Puberty Until 27 Due to Pituitary Dwarfism: ‘It Was a Horror Show’
usmagazine.comReal talk. Tulsa King star Max Casella opened up about his pituitary dwarfism diagnosis — and how it kept him from hitting puberty until he was 27 years old.“I was given testosterone,” Casella, now 55, told Page Six on Wednesday, November 9. “I was on growth hormones; I’m still on those things.
My body didn’t go through the change by itself.”The Newsies star explained that because he has a “malfunctioning pituitary gland from birth,” he was forced to “jumpstart my own puberty” by getting pumped “full of testosterone and growth hormones” in order to grow.He noted, “I was 25, and I hadn’t even shaved.”Pituitary dwarfism is when the pituitary gland fails to produce an adequate supply of growth hormone which is essential for normal childhood development, according to Johns Hopkin’s Medicine — and is something that Casella referred to as “a horror show.”“I couldn’t talk about it.
No one understood it,” he told Page Six on Wednesday. “It’s like the trans community today talks about body dysmorphia and feeling like, ‘I’m in the wrong body,’ absolutely my experience.
Absolutely. I was a man trapped in a little boy’s body throughout most of my 20s until they finally pumped me full of testosterone.”While the Washington D.C.
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