Rise from the Ashes: 6 Celebrity Near-Death Stories

George Clooney

While filming for Catch-22 in Sardinia in 2018, George was riding a scooter from his hotel to the filming location when he had an accident. He crashed into a car at 70 mph.

He got flung into the air and flew over a distance of six metres before landing on the road hard and sustaining multiple bruises. It was a miracle he survived as these kinds of accidents usually tend to be fatal.

Clooney says he was really lucky, he went flying through the air and landed on his knees: if he had landed on any other part of his body he would probably have died.

Anne Hathaway

Several years ago, Anne and her husband, jewellery designer Adam Shulam were on holiday in Hawaii when the actress swam out too far away from shore and got caught in a strong current.

She tried to swim back but she soon began losing strength and sinking. Fortunately, a surfer noticed her flailing in the water and came to her rescue, administering first aid once he got her to shore.

Leonardo DiCaprio

Lionardo DiCaprio has had at least three brushes with death. The first time was in South Africa where he was lowered into shark infested water in a special protective cage, but a shark suddenly broke into the cage.

The shark got inside the cage to almost half its length and began trying to bite Leo. He immediately lay down on the bottom of the cage, trying not to make a move. The shark was about a metre from his head. The people operating the cage later said they had never seen anything like that happen before.

The second time Leo almost died was during a trip to Russia. One of the engines of the plane Leo was on suddenly burst into flames, but the pilots managed to bring it down safely.

Still addicted to adrenaline rushes, Leo then went skydiving only for his parachute to fail to open properly. Luckily, his instructor was nearby: he sailed over to Leo and untangled the straps of his chute, thus saving his life.

Isla Fisher

During the filming of Now You See Me, Isla almost died. There is a scene in the movie where her character is chained and lowered into a glass chamber filled with water. While the scene was being filmed, Isla’s feet got tangled up in the chains,and she couldn't swim to the surface.

She started banging on the glass walls of the chamber, trying to get someone to help her. However, the crew at first thought it was all part of her act. Luckily, they eventually realised Isla was in trouble and rescued her.

Drew Barrymore

2001 saw Drew almost die in her own home. She and her then partner Tom Green were asleep when the house caught on fire. The couple were woken up by their dog that started barking outside the door to their bedroom.

When Drew opened the door to let the dog in, she saw the house was ablaze. Barrymore and Green barely managed to get out of the house before it started collapsing.

Orlando Bloom

Orlando almost died at age 21. He was on holiday with friends, when someone suggested climbing up a drainpipe to get to the roof of a building. So Orlando went on the drainpipe and started climbing.

Unfortunately, when he got to the third floor of the building he fell off the pipe. As he landed on the ground he got knocked out and broke several vertebrae. He ended up being paralysed for several days, after which he went under the knife and had to relearn how to walk for a year and a half. At the time, the doctors said it was a miracle he didn’t die and wasn’t left paraplegic for life.