‘I was very fortunate to survive’ – Actor Orlando Bloom details ‘dark time’ after suffering ‘near-death experience’ as a teen

By Essang Michael - October 13, 2022 | Categories: Entertainment Tags: Celebrities

Share this post:

British actor, Orlando Bloom has opened up about his mental and physical struggles following a devastating ‘near-death’ experience as a teenager.

The 45-year-old actor made the disclosure in an Instagram video for UNICEF in support of World Mental Health Day on October 10.

In the clip, The Lord Of The Rings star described suffering a fall that nearly left him paralyzed.

‘When I was 19 I fell three floors from a window and broke my back. I was very fortunate to survive the fall because my spinal cord was still just intact,’ Bloom said.

‘And when I was in hospital, I was told for the first four days that I may never walk again.’

The ordeal made him reassess some of his previous behaviors.

‘That was really the beginning of what was a long and painful journey for me into recognizing and understanding some of the patterns that had been in my life that had led me to having numerous accidents,’ he added.

‘And the culmination was breaking my back, which was a near-death experience.’

Bloom underwent spinal surgery and intense physical therapy after which he wore a back brace.

‘I would say the months after the fall were quite a dark time,’ the Carnival Row actor said. ‘As somebody who’d sort of always been very active in my life, it felt very restrictive all of a sudden and I was in a lot of pain.’

He continued: ‘And I would say that, for me, the injury created time and space for me to look at my life, recognize what was good and great in my life, and the fact that I had this recovery, and then build that into the way that I live my life.

‘Because mental health is particularly challenging because it’s unseen.’

Bloom, who is engaged to pop star Katy Perry, finished by offering advice on how to ‘transform the pain’ into ‘good fortune.’

‘It is so important to reach out to people, to talk to people, to find somebody in order to create the possibility for communication that leads to transformation and change,’ he shared.

‘It starts with one moment, one conversation, it starts with one question, “What’s on your mind?”‘