Orlando Bloom dishes on mental health journey after ‘near-death’ experience

Orlando Bloom has recently revealed about the “dark time” after he suffered a “near-death” experience as a teenager.

“When I was 19, I fell three floors from a window and broke my back,” said Bloom as an international goodwill ambassador for UNICEF in a video shared by the organisation on Instagram, in honour of World Mental Health Day.

He explained, “I was very fortunate to survive the fall because my spinal cord was still just intact. I was told for the first four days that I may never walk again.”

Reflecting on his mental state at the time, Bloom, who is engaged to Katy Perry, explained, “That was really the beginning of what was a long and painful journey for me into recognising and understanding some of the patterns that had been in my life that had led me to having numerous accidents.”

“And the culmination was breaking my back, which was a near-death experience.”

Pirates of the Caribbean star mentioned that he underwent spinal surgery and after 12 days, he was able to leave the hospital however, it was a long journey to healing.

“I would say the months after the fall were quite a dark time,” he admitted.

Bloom continued, “As somebody who's sort of always been very active in my life, it felt restrictive all of a sudden and I was in a lot of pain.”

“I would say that for me, the injury created time and space for me to look at my life, recognise what was good and great in my life,” recalled Lord of the Rings star.

While addressing about mental health struggles, Bloom noted, “It’s challenging because it’s unseen.”

“It's so important to reach out to people, to talk to people, to find somebody,” suggested Bloom.