Beanie Feldstein Opens Up About the Death of Her and Jonah Hill's Brother in Moving Essay

She compares her grieving process to wearing a pair of glasses.

By Alyssa Morin Apr 17, 2019 2:39 AMTags
Beanie Feldstein, 2018 Oscars, Red Carpet FashionsKevin Mazur/WireImage

Beanie Feldstein is opening up for the first time about the death of her brother, Jordan Feldstein.

"Grief is impossible," the 25-year-old actress writes in an emotional essay titled Grief Glasses for InStyle, which she posted to her Instagram and was shared by People. "It cannot be contained or summarized or enclosed... To describe the wound grief leaves if you have not experienced it is to come to it hazy and out of focus."

Pop culture fans might recall that Beanie and Jonah Hill's brother passed away from a pulmonary embolism in December 2017. He was only 40-years-old, and was most known as a talent manager in the industry—he managed Maroon 5.

"About a year ago, Jordan Feldstein passed away very suddenly and unexpectedly," the Lady Bird actress pens. "He was a remarkably generous, intelligent, loving person. He was an incredible father, beloved by his boys... He was a deeply devoted son."

read
Jonah Hill's Brother Jordan Feldstein's Cause of Death Released

She continues, "He was a brilliant creative mind. And he was my biggest brother. He gave me so many things, including my name."

Feldstein family

Of her grieving process, she explains she's "learned an immeasurable amount about the bandwidth of my own heart."

"The pain is so unbearable at times, so unremitting. Yet, in addition to the deluge of feelings leaking out of me at all times, I have found the process of grief (because it is and will always be a process, never finished, never concluded) to be just as resonant in my mind as it is in my heart."

For the 25-year-old actress, she compares grief to wearing a pair of glasses, ones that "make me see the world differently than I did before."

"The colors bleed together more vividly," she describes. "But they are somehow more than they ever were before. More visceral. More vibrant. More present. Simultaneously more awe-inspiring and more aching." 

She adds, "Sometimes I can push the glasses to the end of my nose, so I can peer over them to see the world the way I used to see. But I can only see over or around to my old perspective. I can never see it totally as it was ever again."

Feldstein wants others in her same situation to know "you are not alone." 

"And while I wish I could rip my grief glasses off my face and have it all be a dream, I try to recognize what the glasses have given me: that unique blend of humanity that is simultaneously the darkest dark and the brightest bright."

Many of her followers have all shared their love and support, including a few celebrities.

"Beautiful, profound, and deeply generous. You are incredible," Olivia Wilde commented on the Lady Bird star's post. Ben Platt simply wrote, "You're a gift."

InStyle's new issue hits newsstands April 19.