The brain worm story came up during a divorce trial. He argued that the worm lowered his income potential and he should pay less alimony.

Also he didn’t have an actual worm munching at his brain. What he had was a tapeworm cyst. When a tapeworm egg is ingested they hatch as larvae that will pass through the intestinal wall and migrate, usually to the muscles, where they form these cysts. If something eats the meat with the cyst then the worm will pop out and turn into an adult. Now the worms don’t really control where they will end up so sometimes they can end up in the brain or the liver or other organs. The cyst can remain for a few years but eventually it will die.

The tapeworm egg could have ended up in his gut in a few ways. He could have had an adult tapeworm and picked up some of the eggs it lays by not washing his hands properly. He could have eaten vegetables that were fertilized with human feces and which were not washed properly. He could have ate someone’s butthole and that person had a tapeworm.