George Clooney Almost Took His Own Life After Suffering a Horrifying On-Set Injury That Left Him in Constant Pain
George Clooney is one of the most established actors in the world. The American actor has received many awards throughout his glorious career over multiple years. He has built a strong resume with blockbuster films. When Clooney is on the screen, it is impossible for our attention to stray from him for even a brief moment.
The actors sometimes go through a lot to bring up their best performance on-screen, which leads to serious accidents and injuries. The 62-year-old life has not always been great, and he, too had his fair share of downs. There was a time when George Clooney met with a horrible accident on set and contemplated taking his own life.
George Clooney considered killing himself
George Clooney was part of the 2005 film Syriana, a political drama directed by Stephen Gaghan. The film was a success with a score of 73% on Rotten Tomatoes. Everyone loved the film and Clooney’s performance as Bob Barnes so much that the actor ended up winning an Oscar for the role.
However, the 62-year-old was going through a terrible time after shooting the movie. While filming a torture scene for the 2005 film, the actor cracked his head open during a stunt and severely injured his spine. The accident had negative long-term implications on the renowned actor’s perception of his physical health.
Talking to Rolling Stone, Clooney recalled the painful days and how he contemplated ending his life because of the unbearable pain. He remembered being in a hospital bed with an IV on his arm, unable to move, and having severe headaches. He said,
“I started to think, I may have to do something drastic about this. You start to think in terms of, you don’t want to leave a mess, so go in the garage, go in the car, start the engine. It seems like the nicest way to do it, but I never thought I’d get there. See, I was in a place where I was trying to figure out how to survive.”
When doctors eventually saw fluid flowing from Clooney’s spine and realized the problem was more severe than anyone had anticipated, they were finally able to locate the location of the injury. The actor went through multiple surgeries to help ease the pain.
George Clooney recalls the recovery period
In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, George Clooney opened up about his time in the hospital. He talked about going through about fifteen blood patches, which are far more terrible than they sound. The 62-year-old said,
“The doctors did these blood patches where they tie you down to a bed, and you’re awake because they have a long needle and need to know if they’re touching your spinal cord, and they take blood out and shoot it directly into your spinal column to try to get the blood to coagulate in those spots. I did about 15 of those over 15 days. It’s like getting a spinal tap every day, and you’re awake…I thought I was going to die.”
After trying a variety of drugs, the Gravity actor finally turned to pain management therapy. He said,
“I went to a pain-management guy whose idea was, ‘You can’t mourn for how you used to feel, because you’re never going to feel that way again.’”
George Clooney eventually recovered from the injury, and the irony was his performance in the 2005 film, Syriana got him an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor.
Source: Rolling Stone
