Suffering in silence in front of screaming fans, some celebs have been through pain the rest of us can't imagine. From actors injured on set to athletes who burned out on the world stage, these stars suffered tragic injuries right before our eyes.
Category
🛠️
LifestyleTranscript
00:00Suffering in silence in front of screaming fans, some celebs have been through pain the
00:05rest of us can't imagine. From actors injured on set to athletes who burned out on the world
00:10stage, these stars suffered tragic injuries right before our eyes.
00:15The artist was well-known for his amazing live shows, but in his younger years, he really
00:20cut loose. Prince often wore high-heeled shoes while performing, and despite his choice of
00:24impractical footwear, he often jumped around, causing undue stress to his joints.
00:29In the mid-'80s, his protege Sheila E. joined him during his Purple Rain tour as an opening
00:35act and later told the press that, even back then, Prince was in constant pain.
00:40In the years that followed, he was sometimes spotted limping or even riding a motorized
00:44scooter to get around while out on tour. He was reportedly using opioids to manage his
00:48chronic pain during his later years, and his reliance on drugs got so bad that he turned
00:53to addiction specialists to beat his habit mere days before his body was found on April
00:5821st, 2016.
01:00Frank Zappa, one of rock's greatest and most prolific eccentrics, suffered from chronic
01:05back pain after a bizarre incident during a performance at London's Rainbow Theatre
01:09on December 10th, 1971. As he and his band began a jokey cover of the Beatles' I Wanna
01:15Hold Your Hand, a man in the crowd turned violent, jumping on stage after flying into
01:20a rage, then shoved Zappa into the theater's orchestra pit. The man attempted to flee,
01:25but was apprehended by members of the crowd. As he later explained, the man wasn't angry
01:30that Zappa was mocking one of Britain's most beloved rock groups, but rather that his girlfriend
01:34had admitted she had a crush on Zappa. The incident landed Zappa in a wheelchair for
01:39almost a year, and reportedly, his crushed larynx caused his voice to drop an octave.
01:45Many performers have fallen off stages over the years, but luckily, most escape with nothing
01:49more than a bruised ego. Unfortunately, that isn't the case for everyone. Just ask Patti
01:54Smith, who teamed up with Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band for a show in Tampa in
01:591977.
02:00Smith was known for her wild performances back then, which often included lots of twirling.
02:05But for this show, the stage crew didn't leave her with much space to work with, so she made
02:09do with what little room she had. But when her foot hit a stage monitor during the show,
02:15she was sent tumbling over the side of the dimly lit stage.
02:18Smith fell 15 feet into the orchestra pit, broke vertebrae in her neck, and fractured
02:23her spine. She still suffers from neck pain, but, as she told the Houston Chronicle in
02:282012,
02:29"...it's nothing I can't live with."
02:31In 2017, after the second of four shows in front of audiences of nearly 100,000 fans
02:37at London's Wembley Stadium, Adele realized something wasn't quite right. She had struggled
02:42during the first two nights and kept having to clear her throat. She saw her doctor, who
02:47told her she'd badly damaged her vocal cords and should cancel the last two shows at Wembley,
02:52which were meant to serve as the finale of her record-setting tour. Sadly, she'd experienced
02:56a similar problem when she suffered a hemorrhage after singing live on a French radio show
03:00in 2011 and underwent a very risky vocal cord microsurgery.
03:05The King of Pop was a legendary performer, but two onstage incidents left him long-lasting
03:11injuries and pain.
03:12In January 1984, while performing onstage at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles for
03:18a Pepsi commercial, he was dancing along to his hit single, Billie Jean, when he got too
03:22close to a pyrotechnic display, setting his jacket and hair on fire. Someone ran onto
03:28the stage, threw him to the floor, and extinguished the blaze, but not before he sustained second
03:33and third-degree burns on his face and scalp.
03:36He was also left with a series of painful migraines that persisted long after his treatment
03:41was completed. Jackson suffered another injury in 1999 after falling over 30 feet while performing
03:47Earth Song at a concert in Munich. He was raised into the air on a bridge that then
03:51unexpectedly dropped back to the stage. Jackson managed to get back on his feet and finish
03:56the show, but he reportedly collapsed backstage afterward. The incident reportedly left him
04:01with chronic back pain that often flared up when he was suffering from mental or physical
04:06stress.
04:07Sid Wilson, the turntablist for Slipknot, was once known for his crazy onstage behavior,
04:13which included being set on fire and doing impressive jumps off the stage and other structures.
04:18On July 9, 2008, the band was performing at the Rockstar Energy Mayhem Festival in Auburn,
04:24Washington, playing their newest single, Psychosocial, for the first time in front of an audience.
04:29Wilson jumped off a platform on the back of the stage while wearing a 40-pound costume
04:34and landed wrong, shattering both heels. It put him in a wheelchair, but that didn't
04:39stop him from continuing to play.
04:41"...and I've been continuing the tour with broken heels."
04:46He continues to have occasional foot trouble, though, putting an end to many of his onstage
04:50antics.
04:52Grabbing drones while they're in mid-flight is dangerous. Spanish heartthrob Enrique Iglesias
04:57learned this lesson the hard way when he grabbed one equipped with a camera during a performance
05:01in Tijuana, Mexico on May 30, 2015. It was a big mistake, even though he'd done this
05:07during prior shows. That night, his hand got a little too close to the drone's spinning
05:12blades. They sliced open one of his palms, fracturing his hand in the process. Iglesias
05:17wrapped his hand in a T-shirt and left the stage. He later had reconstructive surgery,
05:22but told Univision that he no longer has any feeling in one of his fingers.
05:27There's been a lot of talk in recent years about the prevalence of head injuries in the
05:30NFL, but few players ever brought the issue to light during the prime of their career
05:34the way Chris Borland did. In just his first year as a linebacker with the San Francisco
05:3849ers in 2014, Borland made a name for himself as a monster on the field. In his second game
05:43as a starter, he racked up 18 tackles, including a full-on suplex-style takedown of Rams running
05:49back Trey Mason.
05:50At the end of the season, however, Borland made the surprise announcement that he was
05:53calling it quits. Having suffered his first concussion as a child, and then several more
05:57later on in life, he wasn't interested in putting himself at any further risk of injury.
06:02At the time of his announcement, he had no signs of any neurodegenerative disorder, but
06:06he said he had no intention of waiting around until he did.
06:09In 2007, Brandon Roy was named NBA Rookie of the Year. He went on to be a three-time
06:14All-Star, but only managed six seasons in the league before everything fell apart after
06:19a long battle with arthritis that left his knees in shambles. In 2011, Roy announced
06:24his retirement after enduring serious knee pain for two seasons. By the end, he said
06:28that he had no cartilage left between the bones in both knees. He underwent six surgeries,
06:33but the doctors could do nothing more. It was so bad that he was actually at Level 3
06:38arthritis. For perspective, Level 4 is the last level and would have meant a knee replacement,
06:42which would make walking around the house difficult, let alone playing in the NBA.
06:47In 2000, Dante Culpepper finished his first season with the Minnesota Vikings with 33
06:52touchdown passes and nearly 4,000 passing yards. After a couple of shaky subsequent
06:57years, he hit his stride in 2004 with 4,700 yards and 39 touchdowns. It was a decent showing
07:03for the young quarterback and seemed to bode well for the future. But then, in 2005, things
07:07took a turn for the worse really quickly. A crushing blow in Week 7 took out Culpepper's
07:12knee and tore three of his ligaments. He was out for the rest of the season. When he returned
07:16in 2006, he threw only two touchdown passes and underwent another knee surgery to remove
07:21some cartilage that was causing him trouble. By 2009, he was permanently benched by the
07:26Lions. He tried to make a comeback with the Sacramento Mountain Lions of the United Football
07:30League in 2010, but he was never really able to recover from that knee injury.
07:36Defensive tackle Eric LeGrand was a standout in college for the Rutgers Scarlet Knights.
07:40He racked up 33 tackles in the 2009 season and was off to a strong start the following
07:45year. But then, on October 26, 2010, a tackle gone wrong left him with two broken vertebrae,
07:51rendering him paralyzed. LeGrand needed an immediate nine-hour surgery. Doctors told
07:55him he'd never be able to breathe on his own or walk again, and that he'd need a feeding
07:59tube for the rest of his life. LeGrand, however, was having none of that. Five weeks after
08:03his injury, he was successfully taken off the ventilator. He has sensation in the upper
08:07part of his body now, and though he still can't walk, he believes he absolutely will
08:11one day. In 2012, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers drafted LeGrand, a symbolic gesture for a
08:16guy whose perseverance and determination are an inspiration.
08:19I don't even see Eric down, you know? Like, I could count the times on one hand that he's
08:24been down since this injury happened.
08:27Running back Marcus Latimore had only just signed with the San Francisco 49ers after
08:32skipping the final year of his college career in 2013, when his NFL dreams came to a screeching
08:37halt. He racked up a record 38 rushing touchdowns at South Carolina, and his future looked bright.
08:42Unfortunately, during the last year of his college career, he suffered an injury that
08:46tore every ligament in the right knee and dislocated his kneecap. Just a month and a
08:50half later, he declared himself eligible for the NFL Draft.
08:53The 49ers drafted Latimore in the fourth round, signing him to a four-year, $2.5 million contract
08:59— much less than he would have gotten had he not been injured. The team expected him
09:02to bounce back after surgery. Alas, he spent the entire 2013 season on the bench. He ended
09:08up officially retiring from football at age 23, having never played a game in the NFL.
09:13Right after I retired, you know, I thought about, did I make the right decision? You
09:18know, just as any human being would."
09:20In 2014, wrestler Corey Graves was poised to be huge. He had the two things that you
09:25need to be a star in the industry — the physical prowess and the engaging personality.
09:30Lots of wrestlers have the first one, but not many can really pull off the second. But
09:33Graves definitely had a bankable persona. Unfortunately, it was the physical side that
09:38did him in. A second concussion in the span of about six months took Graves permanently
09:42out of the ring. He thought his career was done for good. Luckily for Graves, it wasn't
09:46completely over. He's remained nearby, as the personality that served him so well has
09:51given him a second life as a ringside announcer.
09:54On December 4, 1988, Gary Busey was thrown from his motorcycle while joyriding in West
09:59Hollywood. The actor was not wearing a helmet, and he was swiftly rushed to the hospital,
10:03where he claims he died briefly while undergoing emergency surgery.
10:07Split my skull up to here, knocked a hole in it that big."
10:10Thankfully, he found a way back to the side and has continued his career in the decades
10:14since. The accident was a life-changing moment for a couple of reasons. First, the resulting
10:19head injuries meant he had to relearn how to walk and speak again. When asked how he
10:22feels about the experience now, Busey told The Guardian,
10:25"...I have a brain disorder and a better direction, because of how it happened and how it recovered."
10:31In 1990, Latin American singer Gloria Estefan was on top of the world following a string of
10:3680s hits. But in March of that year, the singer was involved in a horrific crash when a semi-truck
10:41slipped on a wintry Pennsylvania highway and slammed into her tour bus.
10:44"...I open my eyes and I'm on the floor of the bus. And I am looking around and it is mayhem."
10:51Recovery was brutal. Estefan was in a wheelchair for a good bit afterward,
10:55recovering from a broken back, but she claims it changed her life for the better.
10:59Before the accident, she didn't take her spirituality too seriously. She told People,
11:04"...there was definitely a before and after from that accident. Maybe this is the reason that I've
11:08gone through this. Maybe I can be an example to people of how to take control of our lives and
11:12get past hurdles." In 1994, Poison frontman Brett Michael slammed his Ferrari into a telephone pole,
11:18breaking several bones. He'd been bar hopping before getting behind the wheel,
11:22and he told the Houston Press that he'd been driving fast and lost control of his car.
11:26The incident was a sobering experience for Michaels, who said,
11:29"...I still look at the photos sometimes and I look at that car bent back over itself where my
11:33head went through the windshield. Like, man, it is amazing I'm alive. I broke my ribs,
11:38my nose was on the other side of my head, you know? Split my head. It's weird when you find
11:42your own teeth in the floorboard of the car." He recovered in time to reach reality TV glory
11:47with Rock of Love with Brett Michaels.
11:50For millions of people around the world, Christopher Reeve was Superman. He starred
11:54in the critically acclaimed movie in 1978, which got rave reviews from critics. He reprised the
11:59role several times before hanging up the cape and boots after 1987's Superman 4 The Quest for Peace.
12:04By the 1990s, Reeve was looking for new opportunities to showcase his talent and
12:09deepen his filmography with more serious work. But fate had other plans. On May 27,
12:141995, Reeve was thrown from a horse he'd been riding on and tragically paralyzed from the neck
12:20down after shattering two bones in his spine. It was initially unclear if he would survive.
12:25His website says his injuries were so serious that his own mother even discussed pulling him
12:29off of life support with his medical team to alleviate his suffering. Reeve did eventually
12:33pull through, but his career in Hollywood was all but over, and he would spend the rest of his life
12:38in a wheelchair, unable to even turn his head. It was a horrifying turn of events for an actor
12:42barely 42 years old, looking forward to a new phase in his career. But Reeve turned the tragedy
12:48into something positive. He formed the Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation for Victims of Paralysis
12:53alongside his wife, who stayed by his side through what recovery there was.
12:57And any one of us could get hurt at any moment.
13:00These days, you either know Kanye Ye West because of his music or the endless controversies. But as
13:05the Netflix documentary Genius, A Kanye Trilogy, points out, he almost never got the opportunity
13:11to accomplish anything. That's because in 2002, he fell asleep at the wheel and crashed violently
13:16into an oncoming vehicle. The other driver broke both legs, and West's jaw was broken in three
13:21places, necessitating emergency surgery, metal plates, and having his jaw wired shut for weeks.
13:26He told MTV months later,
13:28"[I had nasal fractures. I'd be talking to people and my nose would start bleeding.
13:32Even to this day, I could start choking because spit will go down the wrong path.
13:35The whole area is messed up."
13:37Weirdly, West has since claimed that the accident helped his career.
13:41In a 2014 sit-down with Interview magazine, he said,
13:44"[The accident gave me the opportunity to do what I really wanted to do.
13:47I was a music producer and everyone was telling me that I had no business becoming a rapper,
13:51so it gave me the opportunity to tell everyone,
13:54hey, I need some time to recover. But during that recovery period,
13:57I just spent all my time honing my craft and making the college dropout."
14:00"...I looked at this accident as God saying, I'm about to hand you the world."
14:04That album, released in 2004, would win the Grammy for Best Rap Album.
14:09Sometimes actors risk life and limb by waiving their right to a stunt double.
14:13Just ask Charlize Theron, who did her own stunts for 2005's Aeon Flux.
14:17While shooting a fight scene, she misstepped, attempting to perform some acrobatics in
14:21platform shoes and landed hard on her neck. Filming was halted for weeks while she recovered
14:26from an injury that was almost much, much worse. She later told News.com,
14:31"...I was a centimeter away from being completely paralyzed for the rest of my life.
14:34It was nobody's fault, but it was just a freak accident where I landed on my neck."
14:38Although she recovered, she dealt with chronic pain for years.
14:42Luckily, the worst of it appears to be behind her.
14:44In August 2021, Blink-182 drummer Travis Barker got on a plane with his now-wife,
14:49Kourtney Kardashian. Doesn't sound like a very big deal. After all, a world-famous
14:54and very in-demand musician has to tour, right? Thing is, getting on an aircraft was something
14:58of a triumph for Barker, who'd avoided planes for years following a terrifying and deadly
15:03plane crash in 2008. According to CBS, under-inflated tires caused a Learjet 60
15:08plane carrying Barker and several other passengers to crash on the runway while
15:12attempting to take off. The plane burst into flames, killing several passengers and wounding
15:17Barker.
15:17"...We were to cop fire. We, uh, we were in the air, and then we came down,
15:22in the air, came down, and then finally we hit an embankment."
15:24The following year, people said Barker's good friend and fellow passenger Adam Goldstein,
15:28more commonly known as DJAM, died in New York. Since Goldstein was the only other
15:33person to make it off that plane, that leaves Barker as the sole living survivor of the crash.
15:38Near-death experiences aren't something people get over very easily. In 2014,
15:4330 Rock star Tracy Morgan was involved in a fiery, lethal car accident involving multiple vehicles.
15:49The wreck killed his longtime friend and mentor, 62-year-old Uncle Jimmy Mack,
15:53and sent Morgan to the hospital in critical condition.
15:56According to news media, the accident occurred when a Walmart truck smashed into a limousine
16:00Morgan was in on the New Jersey Turnpike. For five months, Morgan was largely bedridden
16:05and confined to a wheelchair when he wasn't. He later told Rolling Stone,
16:09"...I was in a very dark place. I was sitting right here contemplating suicide. I couldn't walk."
16:14On the Today show, he said that he initially didn't remember the ordeal,
16:17but that hospital staff kept him informed as he recovered in those first days after the accident,
16:22saying,
16:22"...It was surreal. They remember everything. I had traumatic brain damage,
16:26so I don't remember anything, and they would tell me everything that happened."
16:30"...When I first came out through the coma, I was, I was a mess."
16:33When the memories flooded back, it was traumatic, he said, adding,
16:37"...I got to the bed that I recovered in, and I just dropped to my knees and started crying,
16:41because everything came before my face. Jimmy Mack, the truck,
16:44my friends that was in the car with me — all of that stuff came right before me."
16:48Harrison Ford doesn't just pretend to know his way around planes and spaceships in the movies.
16:52The star has been flying for years.
16:54"...You know how to fly, don't you?"
16:57"...No. Do you?"
16:58And he's not just flying recreationally, either. The article says he's flown real-life
17:02wilderness rescues that have saved lives. But in 2015, he was the one in need of help.
17:07The Associated Press says that the then-72-year-old A-lister was injured after crash-landing on a
17:11California golf course. But it wasn't incompetence that caused the wreck — quite the opposite,
17:16actually. Witnesses and aviation vets commended Ford for landing in open ground, even roughly,
17:21rather than trying to limp his dying aircraft back to the runway and risk crashing into a
17:25populated area. One witness said,
17:27"...another 25 to 30 yards and I don't want to think about it."
17:30He's saved several lives.
17:32"...You ever have a flying dream?"
17:35"...I have."
17:37AP said his condition was fair to moderate as he was taken to the hospital. But although he
17:41recovered fully, he may have been in worse shape than he initially let on. Ford recalled his
17:45injuries to Ellen — a dislocated right ankle, a shattered pelvis and a broken back, and a serious
17:50bump on the head — and a major laceration. Some people are just born lucky. When you see
17:55just how many times Justin Theroux has escaped death, you'll get what we mean.
17:59On an episode of Ellen, Justin Theroux talked about his many injuries while filming The Leftovers,
18:03saying,
18:04"...I went to the emergency room every single season of the show."
18:07In another episode, he describes a scooter accident, saying,
18:10"...I realize as I'm coming up on the next street that there's no lock-up. There's still actual
18:14cars going back and forth." He slammed on the brakes and flew sideways off the bike,
18:18smashing his head on the ground. And that wasn't even the worst thing he went through.
18:21On yet another Ellen episode, he describes an earlier incident where he got creamed by
18:25a van while skateboarding and woke up with amnesia. He told Ellen,
18:29"...I woke up with people all around me. I clearly blanked out for, I think, a long time. I had no
18:34clue who I was. I mean, I knew that it was me. But I couldn't remember my name, and I couldn't
18:39remember my phone number." Luckily, it wore off, and he recovered fully.
18:43Actress and model Brooke Shields was just trying to stay in shape when she tumbled off a balance
18:47board and instantly knew something was wrong. She told People,
18:51"...it felt like it was all in slow motion. And then I just started screaming. Sound came out of
18:55me that I'd never heard before." She had a broken femur, and she said she was genuinely afraid she
18:59was paralyzed and would never walk again. In the hospital, Shields got two metal rods in her leg.
19:04But then her injured bone popped out again, necessitating a second surgery involving five
19:08more rods and a metal plate to hold everything in place.
19:11"...I realize what a fighter I am."
19:13On February 21, 2021, Shields posted a video to Instagram of herself walking slowly in a
19:18hospital gown with the use of crutches. The caption read,
19:22"...broke my femur, beginning to mend. No matter what your challenge is,
19:25make a positive choice for yourself to move forward."
19:28While you might not think of The Exorcist as much of an action spectacular, it did have a few
19:32moments that required some minor stunt work. In one scene, Ellen Burstyn's character Chris is
19:37thrown to the floor by her daughter Regan, who is played by Linda Blair. In another, Blair was
19:41meant to thrash up and down on her bed. Both actors ended up with permanent injuries from
19:45these stunts. For Burstyn, the scene was relatively simple. During one of Regan's
19:49demonic outbursts, Chris is supposed to be thrown to the floor. To achieve this effect,
19:53the filmmakers tied her to a harness and yanked her to the ground, simulating the force of the
19:57demon. After the first take, she mentioned to director William Friedkin that the operator had
20:01pulled the harness too hard. But on the second take, she was pulled down even harder and shattered
20:05her tailbone as a result. Meanwhile, Blair's thrashing was accomplished by tying her to a
20:09mechanism using a special corset, which could fling her up at a right angle, then back down
20:14again. In one take, however, the corset came loose, and Blair repeatedly slammed her back
20:18into the mechanism, fracturing her lower spine. To make things even more uncomfortable, Friedkin
20:23used both takes in the final movie. Both characters' screams of pain are very much real.
20:28I couldn't stand that he was willing to just get a quick shot of it before they called the
20:33ambulance, you know?
20:36In 1981, Noah Marshall released Roar, a film about big cats that has since become remembered
20:40as one of the most disastrous film productions of all time. The cast and crew suffered so many
20:45injuries from the film's animals that it's actually not clear how many people ended up
20:49getting hurt. During filming, Tippi Hedren suffered multiple scalp wounds and a shattered leg,
20:53while Melanie Griffith was mauled, nearly costing her an eye and required facial reconstruction.
20:58And those weren't even the worst injuries, as a cinematographer was nearly scalped by a lion
21:03and Marshall himself ended up getting gangrene from his numerous animal wounds.
21:07He was crazy. He was crazy.
21:09The problem was that the animals were entirely untrained, and all of the scenes with them were
21:14improvised. They were all the property of Marshall and Hedren, and there was no on-set trainer.
21:18The film was shot on Marshall and Hedren's own ranch, and this was before most modern
21:22safety requirements. Of course, it must have hurt all the more when, after literally shedding blood
21:27for the camera, Roar completely tanked at the box office.
21:30You might not know who Charles McGraw is, but you've probably seen his movies.
21:34As a character actor, McGraw made appearances in all sorts of films,
21:37but the most famous was 1960's Spartacus. In this classic movie, McGraw plays Marcellus,
21:43Spartacus' gladiator trainer and a minor villain, who has his comeuppance when Spartacus drowns him
21:47in a pot of soup during a slave revolt. It was during the filming of the soup scene that McGraw
21:51ended up seriously injured. Kirk Douglas, who played Spartacus, was meant to force
21:56McGraw's head into the soup, but the actor slipped. McGraw's jaw ended up hitting the
22:00side of the soup pot, which, of course, was an actual iron cauldron. The shot is in the
22:04final film, and if you watch it carefully, you can see the moment of impact itself,
22:08and a somewhat dazed expression on McGraw's face, which is real,
22:11because Douglas had just shattered McGraw's jaw.
22:13That wasn't the end of it, though. Douglas blamed McGraw for the accident,
22:17which angered stuntman Louis Elias. Elias then stepped in to do a take of the scene,
22:21but ended up also hitting his face on the pot, and ended up needing four stitches on his chin.
22:25Elias claimed that it was his own fault for slipping, but it's hard to rule out the
22:29possibility that Kirk Douglas just liked smacking people in the face.
22:33In 2001's Cast Away, Tom Hanks really lost 50 pounds to portray Chuck Nolan,
22:37a FedEx logistics officer who ends up stranded on a deserted island.
22:41Amazingly, Hanks is able to carry the movie almost entirely by himself,
22:45but the real surprise is that one minor injury on set nearly killed him.
22:48During filming, Hanks suffered a small cut on his leg. Nothing major,
22:52and Hanks basically shrugged it off. But two weeks later, the wound was still there,
22:56and still very sore. Deciding that it was time to get it checked out,
22:59Hanks saw a doctor who told him something shocking. He was about to die.
23:03The cut had a stap infection, and it was getting worse by the minute. Hanks had been completely
23:07unaware that his own blood was turning into poison inside of him and passing the infection
23:11throughout his body. Now, if this had happened to a FedEx employee on a deserted island,
23:15he'd be in big trouble. In fact, it's not uncommon for survivors to have to battle
23:19infections while awaiting rescue. Obviously, however, Tom Hanks has movie star health
23:23insurance, so he spent a few days in the hospital and thankfully recovered just fine.
23:28After six seasons of confusing twists and turns, Lost finally had its series finale on May 25th,
23:342010, with a two-parter simply titled The End. The episode features Matthew Fox's character Jack
23:39Shepard facing down the Man in Black, played by Terry O'Quinn, in a cliffside knife fight
23:44as the island crumbles around them. But production on the show very nearly ended
23:47in tragedy. In an episode of his podcast dedicated to the end, Jorge Garcia describes
23:52how during the episode's filming, Fox was supposed to be stabbed by O'Quinn with a collapsible prop
23:56knife. Since this was a pretty low-risk scene, originally the production wasn't going to force
24:01Fox to wear any sort of pad, but the stunt coordinator stepped in at the last second.
24:05The only pad they could find that would fit under Fox's shirt without being too obvious
24:08was a piece of Kevlar. This ended up saving Matthew Fox's life, because a prop mix-up
24:13caused the collapsible knife to be swapped for the real one. O'Quinn stabbed Fox for real,
24:17but he only suffered minor injuries thanks to the Kevlar. If he had gone without the pad
24:21as planned, or if they had used any other pad, he would have been very seriously injured,
24:25or even killed.
24:27In 2004, Mel Gibson directed The Passion of the Christ, an R-rated depiction of the
24:32suffering Jesus is said to have endured at the hands of the Romans during his execution.
24:36In an era that saw the release of Hollywood's goriest horror movies, Gibson's dark and gritty
24:40crucifixion story stood its own ground in terms of sheer violence. Star Jim Caviezel,
24:45who played Jesus, also suffered quite a bit during filming. A weird cavalcade of injuries
24:49befell him on set, more than one of which could have easily killed him. For example,
24:53the film shows Jesus carrying his own cross while being whipped by Roman soldiers. One of the extras
24:58in these scenes accidentally whipped Caviezel for real, leaving a 14-inch gash on his back.
25:02The cross prop itself also weighed 150 pounds and fell on Caviezel at one point,
25:07sending him face down in the sand and causing him to badly bite his own tongue.
25:11The shot is included in the film, and the blood pouring from his mouth is totally real.
25:15"...the man put a stethoscope on my heart and he said, Mel, he can die."
25:21On top of being nearly crushed and whipped, during the filming of Jesus' famous Sermon on the Mount,
25:25Caviezel was struck by lightning, which as far as signs from God go, really can't be good news.
25:31Brandon Lee, son of martial artist and actor Bruce Lee, once had a promising acting career
25:35ahead of him. Most notably, he had just scored his first major leading role playing Eric Draven
25:40in an adaptation of James O'Barr's underground comic series The Crow. The film was already
25:44shaping up to be the ultimate goth film, full of melodrama, black costumes, and a soundtrack
25:49packed with industrial and metal bangers. But the film took on an even darker tone after March 31,
25:541993, when Lee was accidentally shot and killed on the movie's set.
25:59During filming of a scene where Lee's character is shot, things appeared to go off without a hitch.
26:03The gun, loaded with blanks, went off and Lee hit the floor. Soon, though, crew members noticed
26:07blood pooling around Lee's side. He was rushed to the hospital, but died hours later. The production
26:12later pieced together what happened. In a previous scene, the crew had filmed a close-up of the prop
26:17gun being loaded. Dummy bullets were loaded into the gun for this scene, then removed and replaced
26:21with blanks for the next scene, where the gun would be fired. Unnoticed by the props department,
26:25though, was a piece of the dummy bullet lodged in the gun. When the dummy bullet fragment and blank
26:30combined, this effectively made a live round, which was what ended up killing Lee.
26:35In 1982, directors Steven Spielberg and John Landis began working on a film based on the
26:401960s television series The Twilight Zone. The film would be an anthology, remaking four episodes
26:45from the show, each with a different director. Spielberg and Landis took one each, and directors
26:50Joe Dante and George Miller made two others. Landis chose a segment called Time Out, an original story
26:55loosely based on multiple episodes of the show. In the segment, actor Vic Morrow plays a racist
27:00named Bill Conner who changes his ways after traveling back in time and experiencing famous
27:05moments of oppression from the perspective of the victims. This includes a scene during the
27:09Vietnam War in which Conner is shot at by American soldiers. In the final movie, Conner is attacked
27:14alone and escapes alone, but in the original script, he was meant to rescue two Vietnamese
27:18children as well. These children were Mika Dinh Le and Renee Shin-Yi Chen, and both were non-actors
27:24who had been hired illegally. In a scene where Morrow carries them both across a river,
27:28a low-flying helicopter was meant to swoop overhead with explosives going off nearby.
27:32Those explosions brought down the helicopter which crashed on top of Morrow and the two children,
27:37killing all three. Landis and several other members of the crew were accused of negligence
27:41and brought to trial, but were all eventually acquitted.
27:452005's Siriana gave George Clooney an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor and a spot on
27:50many critics' Top Ten list, but it also got him something far more dangerous a pretty serious
27:55brain injury. During a scene in which Clooney is tied to a chair, the chair was accidentally
27:59knocked over backward with Clooney still tied to it. He hit his head on the hard ground but
28:03thought he was okay, so he took it easy for a bit and then went back to work. But over the
28:07next several months, Clooney began suffering from horrifyingly painful headaches. Because
28:11he had a family history of painkiller addiction, he didn't take any sort of pain-relieving drugs.
28:16But the headaches were so bad that he has since revealed that he contemplated taking his own life
28:20just to get away from the intense pain. Clooney kept returning to the doctor over and over until
28:25they finally figured it out. During the fall, he had ruptured a sac called the dura mater,
28:29a membrane that stretches from the spine into the brain. The headaches and associated pains
28:33had manifested because his brain wasn't floating in the fluid like it was supposed to, but instead
28:38smacked into his skull, bruising it badly.