“Reacher” star Alan Ritchson has revealed he attempted to take his own life in 2019 — but stopped himself when he envisioned his three children as adults begging him to live.
The 41-year-old star — who plays Jack Reacher in the Amazon Prime Video action series “Reacher,” now in its second season — opened up about his Catholic upbringing, his adoration of Jim Carrey, and his career in a wide-ranging Hollywood Reporter feature published Wednesday.
Ritchson was candid in describing his 2019 suicide attempt at his California home. The actor revealed he fell into a dark place and one day went to his attic.
“I hung myself,” Ritchson told The Hollywood Reporter. “It all happened so fast, and I was dangling there.”
But then he experienced what he likened to divine intervention: He experienced a vision of his then-young sons in their mid-30s.
“They calmly asked me not to do it, and told me that they wanted me to be here, alive and part of their lives,” he recalled.
Ritchson then pulled himself up — crediting his strength from doing “a million pull-ups” in his life — then he blacked out.
He immediately called his doctor afterward and was soon diagnosed with bipolar disorder at the age of 36.
Ritchson also opened up about his modeling career — which he pursued based on the suggestion of a customer at a Florida gas station where he worked making sandwiches after dropping out of college.
He moved to Miami and signed with a modeling agency. But Ritchson said modeling was not a positive journey, adding, “There are very few redeeming qualities to working in that industry.”
“Let’s be honest, it’s like legalized sex trafficking. The industry is not regulated, and it’s a widely known secret that if you’re hired on a job, you’re basically being passed off to a photographer to be trafficked,” he said.
“The number of times and situations where I was put in horrific environments where sexual abuse was the goal and the paycheck that you were desperate for in order to survive was the carrot, I can’t count on two hands. It was quite often,” he added.
He described “dancing around this very terrible line” between keeping jobs and not offending photographers and protecting oneself.
Ritchson recalled one harrowing encounter when he was working with a very famous photographer whom he did not name.
“I was sent into a hotel room to do nudes with the promise that if I did the shoot, he would offer me a very lucrative campaign for a magazine and a clothing line. I was sexually assaulted by this guy,” Ritchson revealed.
He left the shoot and drove straight to his agency in Los Angeles and raged at his agent.
“I stormed in and said, ‘F--- you for sending me there. You knew what was going to happen, and you did it anyway.’ There was a coy smile [on this agent’s face], knowing he got caught. ‘It’s OK,’ he said. ‘Not a big deal, calm down. I won’t send you back there. I know he’s a little aggressive,’” Ritchson recalled.
Ritchson told the agent to never call him again and quit the industry. That was the last photo shoot he did as a model, and those pictures were never seen or published.
Ritchson turned to Hollywood by way of “American Idol” — his Season 3 audition landed him in Los Angeles for the Hollywood rounds that aired in 2004. He was eventually cut during the round of 32, but decided to stay in Tinseltown to pursue acting.
Over the years, he appeared in the TV series “Smallville” as Arthur Curry, also known as Aquaman, as well as the sitcom “Blue Mountain State,” the film “The Hunger Games: Catching Fire,” and episodes of “Black Mirror” and “Brooklyn Nine-Nine.”
Ritchson’s massive break came when he was cast as Jack Reacher — a former major in the U.S. Army Military Police Corps who solves mysteries with some action-packed street justice.
Ritchson was notably open in expressing the ups and downs of his career and betrayals along the way that left him feeling broken and depressed.
Now, he’s one of Hollywood’s leading men, with a packed filming schedule. He starred in “Ordinary Angels” alongside Oscar winner Hilary Swank, which released in February, and will star in the upcoming Guy Ritchie film “The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare” with Henry Cavill and Henry Golding, and in Luke Greenfield's “Playdate” alongside Kevin James.
“But I’ve come to learn that it’s not what matters most,” Ritchson said on his wild success. “I try to keep my eyes fixed on opportunities to serve others. It’s faith, family, mental health, business practices, all of it is sort of prioritized in the right way that it can work together well in concert.”
If you or someone you know is in crisis, call 988 to reach the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. You can also call the network, previously known as the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, at 800-273-8255, text HOME to 741741 or visit SpeakingOfSuicide.com/resources for additional resources.
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