George Clooney, Anne Hathaway and More Celebrities Who Narrowly Escaped Death

Despite frightening events like crashes, near-drownings and medical emergencies, these celebrities made it out alive — barely.

ISLA FISHER

Xavier Collin/Image Press Agency / MEGA

On the set of Isla Fisher’s 2013 film Now You See Me, the production team saw the actress almost drown. On Chelsea Lately, per Huffington Post, the 50-year-old explained that she got stuck in a water tank while doing a stunt. “I couldn’t get up. Everyone thought I was acting fabulously,” she explained, adding that she was underwater for almost three minutes with her release chain stuck on her costume. “I was actually drowning. … No one realized I was actually struggling.” Thankfully, a stuntman helped her escape with the help of a quick release switch. Fisher added: “Who wants to die in a swimming costume?”

ANNE HATHAWAY

zz/KGC-522/starmaxinc.com/Newscom/The Mega Agency

Two years after winning an Oscar for portraying the tragic heroine Fantine in Les Misérables, Anne Hathaway faced a major scare while vacationing in Hawaii with husband Adam Shulman. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the 43-year-old got caught in a powerful riptide while swimming off the coast of Oahu and had to be saved by a local surfer.

GEORGE CLOONEY

ZUMAPRESS.com / MEGA

In 2018, George Clooney was involved in a near-fatal motorcycle accident in Italy. After hitting a Mercedes while riding his bike at 70 miles per hour, the Ocean’s Eleven star — now 65 — said he thought he wasn’t going to make it out alive. “It knocked me out of my shoes,” he recalled to The Hollywood Reporter. Clooney, who was also severely injured years earlier on the set of the 2005 film Syriana, recalled of his feelings post-crash. “I was just waiting for the switch to turn off because I broke his windshield with my head, and I thought, ‘OK, well, that’s my neck.’ If you get nine lives, I got all of them used up at once — so I can let go of motorcycle riding for a while.”

TRACY MORGAN

AdMedia/Newscom/The Mega Agency

It was no laughing matter when Tracy Morgan was in a fatal car crash in 2014. Six vehicles were involved in the incident, in which the limo bus carrying the comedian, now 57, and several others was rear-ended by a tractor trailer on the New Jersey Turnpike. While his mentor, James McNair (a.k.a. Uncle Jimmy Mack), was pronounced dead at the scene, Tracy survived, suffering a broken leg, a broken nose, several broken ribs, and a traumatic brain injury that left him in a coma for two weeks. “[I’m] fighting every day,” he said at the time, per ABC News.

LEONARDO DiCAPRIO

Fred Duval/MEGA

“If a cat has nine lives, I think I’ve used a few,” Leonardo DiCaprio told Wired, explaining that he’s had a few brushes with death. While scuba diving in South Africa, a shark pushed into his protective cage and began snapping at him. “The great white took about five or six snaps an arm’s length away from my head,” the 51-year-old recalled. But it’s not just the depths that have put the Titanic star in harm’s way. DiCaprio has also survived a flight to Russia that required an emergency landing after an engine blew, and nearly perished when two parachutes became tangled during a skydiving trip. “I thought we were just plummeting to our death,” he said.

EMILIA CLARKE

JOHN ANGELILLO/UPI/Newscom/The Mega Agency

Daenerys Targaryen once fought bigger fights than the Battle of Winterfell. After filming the first season of Game of Thrones, Emilia Clarke — now 39 — suffered two life-threatening brain aneurysms. “Just when all my childhood dreams seemed to have come true, I nearly lost my mind and then my life,” Clarke told New Yorker, adding that she was diagnosed with a subarachnoid hemorrhage (SAH) and learned that about a third of SAH patients die immediately or soon after diagnosis. “I had no time for brain surgery,” she said.

CHARLIZE THERON

John Angelillo/UPI/Newscom/The Mega Agency

An on-set stunt almost killed the star of Aeon Flux. The Los Angeles Times reported that Charlize Theron, 50, injured her neck when she fell doing a backflip in platform shoes. Her then-boyfriend, actor Stuart Townsend, went on to explain: “The slipped disc [in her neck] went almost into the spinal cord. She’s fine, but she could’ve been in a lot of trouble.” Shooting was postponed for about eight weeks while Theron recovered from the herniated disc.

JOHNNY DEPP

KEIZO MORI/UPI/Newscom/The Mega Agency

Plane scary: Johnny Depp preferred to take a private jet back and forth to the Puerto Rico set of The Rum Diary. During one flight with director Bruce Robinson on board, the engine conked out in midair. “The plane just shut down,” the San Francisco Chronicle via Today reported the actor, 63, recalling of the frightening experience. “The sound of the engines stopped. There was silence. Bruce and I were looking at each other, and I think I said, ‘Is this it?’ It was like this weird extended moment when you’re just floating for a second and you could feel this unpleasant descent.” Lucky for them, the plane kicked back into gear just in time.

OZZY OSBOURNE

ZUMAPRESS.com / MEGA

The late Ozzy Osbourne — who passed away in May 2025 at the age of 76 —  was riding a quad when he thought his life might come to an end. In 2003, Osbourne was rushed to the hospital after falling off his ATV while zooming across the grounds of his London-area estate. The The “Crazy Train” singer suffered a broken collarbone, eight broken ribs and an injured vertebra in his neck. “I am lucky to be here today and not paralyzed,” he later reflected to Britain’s Sunday Mirror via American Songwriter, adding that he slipped in and out of a coma for eight days following the incident. “The doctors tell me every day it could have been a lot worse.”

JOAQUIN PHOENIX

Lumeimages / MEGA

In 2006, Joaquin Phoenix flipped his car and crashed into another vehicle when his brakes failed while driving in Los Angeles. Luckily, director Werner Herzog lived nearby. “There was this German voice saying, ‘Just relax,’” The Guardian reported the Joker star, 45, as remembering, recalling that Werner helped him from the vehicle. “There’s something so calming and beautiful about Werner Herzog’s voice.” The auteur later recalled the incident from his perspective, saying that he asked Phoenix to hand over his cigarette lighter because “there was gasoline dripping all over the car,” per Slate.

This story George Clooney, Anne Hathaway and More Celebrities Who Narrowly Escaped Death first appeared on InTouch Weekly. Follow InTouch Weekly on Yahoo so you don’t miss what’s coming next.