Jackie Cruz attempted suicide multiple times after having a near-fatal car crash.
The ‘Orange Is the New Black’ actress was left with a "crooked" face and multiple other injuries after the smash as a teenager, which happened when a friend began racing the vehicle next to them while on the way to a concert and lost control, sending Jackie – who wasn’t wearing a seatbelt – through the windshield.
The 32-year-old star was rushed to hospital and underwent brain surgery but afterwards, she was left feeling "very depressed" because she didn’t "recognise" herself any more.
She said: "They had to shave my head right away. I had a kidney contusion, a collapsed lung, and two broken vertebrae. So my eyes were crooked and my face was crooked, I couldn’t smile.
"Looking at myself in the mirror, not like recognising myself, was scary. I wanted to commit suicide at the time because all I ever wanted was to be an actress and a singer and I grew up just watching beautiful people on TV and I just felt like that was it for me.
"It didn’t look like me anymore. I didn’t know who it was. I was very depressed and I tried to kill myself a few times with pills."
But Jackie – who was in a coma for 72 hours after the surgery – eventually realised beauty came from "within" thanks to a fellow patient, 10-year-old Melly.
Speaking to People magazine, Jackie added: "There was a little girl in the hospital. She was 10 years old, and her name is Melly. She will never walk again, but she is strong and happy and she would come by my room all the time and I never really paid attention.
"Then we got to talking, and she told me I was pretty. She taught me that beauty is always from within. It’s the way you treat someone, it’s the way you are, and she saw that. She saw the strength without, she saw the beauty in me without looking at my surface."
Despite her struggles at the time, the actress thinks the accident set her back on the right path in her life.
She said: "I don’t regret anything. I’m so grateful to God that [it] acted and happened because I was really going in the wrong way of life and I feel like it was a slap in the face."
Jackie Cruz attempted suicide multiple times following crash
