Kirsten Dunst 'freaking out' after son's 'horrible' health emergency in Budapest

Kirsten Dunst has shared details of her son's "horrible" health emergency that had her entire family running back to Los Angeles shortly after moving to Budapest, Hungary.

The Bring It On actress shares. two children with her husband Jesse Plemons - Ennis and James. The family moved to Budapest in January and planned to live there for six months while Kirsten filmed her upcoming film The Entertainment System is Down.

But, for everyone but the actress, the trip was cut short when James, 4, had a terrifying health scare. Talking on a podcast this week, Kirsten shared how "horrible" the situation was.

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"We all went as a family. We enrolled them in the International School there and then my son had appendicitis and emergency surgery and then recovered for a week and then had a blockage. So basically, my time in Budapest was horrible. It was horrible."

The NHS explains that appendicitis is when the appendix becomes inflamed and infected, usually because of a bowel obstruction. In 20-30% of cases affecting children, the appendix ruptures and releases the infection to the abdomen. Appendicitis is a common condition but most likely to affect people aged 10-20.

James Bateman, co-host of the SmartLess podcast, where Kirsten was opening up about her son, remarked that it was incredibly uncommon for a 4-year-old to have appendicitis.

Kirsten responded that she was worried the move to Hungary and letting her children drink the water there caused it. "Everyone's like, 'Drink the water there.' So I was like, 'Yeah, the water's great.' And now I'm freaking out, like, 'Was it the water?' I don't know."

She added that it was a tough year, but James' illness got 2025 off to a particularly bad start. "Everyone's had a s*** year, it seems like, but like the first part of our year was pretty bad." She didn't add anymore details but promised James is "fine" now.

Kirsten first met Jesse on the set of the second series of Fargo in 2015, but at the time, she was dating Garrett Hedlund. It is believed that the now married couple started dating in March 2016.

“It was one of those connections where you just know,” Kirsten said in 2020. “But we’re also very respectful people and were mindful of the fact that we were working together intensely.

"After we were done with the show, we’d FaceTime now and then, and I just missed him. I missed being around him. And he did, too. We didn’t get together until the following March, when we’d had the time to realise how much we missed each other and how much we wanted to be in each others’ lives.”

They got engaged in the January of 2017. A year later, Kirsten announced she was pregnant with their first child, Ennis. They had James in 2021 and finally got married in 2022.

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