You never know how precious life is until you almost lose it.
Unfortunately, if anyone knows this firsthand, it’s these 10+ celebrities.
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From car accidents to near drownings to getting shot nine times, these stars have a new lease on life after they escaped their close calls with death.
Here are their stories.
1. Emilia Clarke
A lot of people don’t know this, but the actress had a brain aneurysm in 2011 after the first season of Game of Thrones .
As if that wasn’t scary enough, she had another one after she finished filming Season three.
It was then that she wondered whether she would survive.
She told the New Yorker :
“I now have a hard time remembering those dark days in much detail. My mind has blocked them out. But I do remember being convinced that I wasn’t going to live.”
2. Zac Efron
When the actor was working out with his The Greatest Showman co-star in London, he was almost hit by a double-decker bus.
“I slammed on the brakes, went under the front tire, and narrowly missed death,” he said on The Graham Norton Show .
3. Tracy Morgan
2014 marked the year that the comedian almost died .
He was involved in a major six-vehicle accident that killed his best friend and left him in a coma for two weeks. The experience still haunts him to this day.
4. Benedict Cumberbatch
The actor was kidnapped when he was in South Africa filming the BBC series, To The Ends Of The Earth .
He and his co-stars were robbed, tied up with their own shoelaces, and made to believe that they were about to be killed.
Thankfully, the suspects fled the scene.
“I was definitely more impatient to live a life less ordinary,” he told Vanity Fair about the experience changing his life.
“If you feel you’re going to die, you don’t think you’re going to have all those sensations again—a cold beer, a cigarette, the feel of sun on your skin.”
5. Travis Barker
Not many people can say that they survived a plane crash, but the Blink-182 drummer can.
He wrote about it in his memoir , writing, “Behind me, I can sense death: a burning airplane that contains the bodies of two pilots and two good friends.”
6. Sharon Stone
The actress “died and came back to life” in 2001 due to a severe brain hemorrhage.
“I feel that I did die,” she told Closer Weekly . “I sort of took off into this glorious, bright-white light.”
7. Lamar Odom
2015 was a dark year for the former athlete. He overdosed in a Nevada brothel while still married to Khloé Kardashian.
In an essay, he wrote that he “shook hands with death.” The experience has thankfully helped him get sober.
8. Paul Rudd
The night before filming at the Bosstones party for Clueless , Rudd went out for dinner with some friends.
Afterward, a man jumped out at the group and put a gun next to Paul’s head. “He goes, ‘You don’t think this is a real gun?'” Paul said in the movie’s oral history.
“He was all tweaked out on something, and he shot his gun next to my head.”
Paul’s friend ran inside to get the police who were inside the restaurant, but it was too late.
The robber got away with the actor’s backpack, which had a copy of the Clueless script in it and his Discman!
9. George Clooney
The actor experienced a terrifying on-set accident while filming Catch-22 in Italy.
His motorcycle collided with a Mercedes. “It split my helmet in half, it knocked me out of my shoes. I was hit hard,” he told The Hollywood Reporter .
10. 50 Cent
The rapper was famously shot nine times at the point-blank range. This resulted in him recovering in the hospital for 13 weeks.
There was some good to the traumatic experience, though, as it inspired his album, “Get Rich or Die Tryin'”.
11. Gerald Butler
The actor isn’t too keen on water after he was pulled underwater while filming Chasing Mavericks in 2012.
“It was a pretty close call…[The waves] just took me and I couldn’t get up,” he said on The Graham Norton Show .
12. Kayne West
The rapper has had a new lease on life ever since he was involved in a severe car accident that almost killed him in 2002.
Like 50 cent, the traumatic experience inspired his album, “Through the Wire”.
“If I would have passed that night, that would have been the end of my legacy,” he told *USA Today*.
“Now when I go into the studio, I act like this could possibly be my last day,” he said USA Today .
13. Jonah Hill
The actor has a scar on his right arm to always remind him that he’s lucky to be alive.
When he was 15, he and his friend snuck out in an SUV at night. Hill stuck his elbow out the open window while his friend started driving like a maniac.
The car eventually flipped and skidded down the road, dragging Hill’s arm with it.
“This is one of the biggest things ever in my life,” he told Rolling Stone about the traumatic experience. He’s definitely lucky to be alive!
14. Chad Michael Murray
The One Tree Hill found himself in the hospital with twisted intestines at the age of 15.
But since he was in such good shape (yes, really), his tight abs hid the fact that he was internally bleeding. In the end, a nurse saved his life.
15. Kaley Cuoco
Getting trampled by a horse is no joke. But sadly, that’s what happened to the equestrian.
After falling off her horse, her leg was trampled.
“All the bones were sticking out,” she said during an appearance on The Ellen Show in 2010.
