Jenna Ortega gets honest about her lifelong battle with OCD
Jenna Ortega reveals surprising way she deals with OCD
Published October 23, 2026
Jenna Ortega has a few routines she still struggles to break — and some date back to when she was just seven years old.
The Wednesday star is opening up about living with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), revealing the rituals that continue to follow her into adulthood.
In a new interview with Vogue, published October 22, Ortega recalled growing up with “a lot of different trains rolling in my brain at the same time.”
Read More: Jenna Ortega reveals why she refuses to watch her own movies
As a child, she would wake up before her siblings to complete a particular sequence of tasks before school.
“I had to open the bedsheet a certain way, and open the drawer one way, and brush my hair in a slow-paced way,” she said.
Today, her OCD can become more noticeable when she is anxious, exhausted or jet-lagged. Some of her routines include repeating “take care” a set number of times, stepping onto a film set with her left foot first and holding her breath while counting to 71.
“I just bite the bullet and do the routine,” she admitted.
Ortega has tried therapy and medication, but she has also found ways to make the experience feel less overwhelming — including imagining OCD as a game.
Acting provides another kind of relief. When the cameras start rolling, she explained, “You have to breathe.”
“That’s another reason why I like my job,” she told Vogue.
The actress previously discussed her “pretty intense” OCD with the magazine in August 2025, revealing that she had followed the “exact same routine” for seven years.
“I count to a certain number in the shower. I put my clothes on in a certain order,” she said at the time, adding that even putting a sock on the wrong foot could leave her wondering why she was having a bad day.
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Ortega’s candid interview arrives just ahead of Klara and the Sun, directed by Taika Waititi and based on Kazuo Ishiguro’s novel, hitting theaters on October 23.
