The Reacher star reveals that the incident left him with scars that led to a suicide attempt that he ultimately stopped due to his kids.

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SUMMARY

 Alan Ritchson endured a traumatic sexual assault during his modeling career, leading to an existential crisis and suicide attempt in 2019.
 Despite the trauma, Ritchson found purpose in life through serving others and transitioning into a successful acting career.
 The actor’s vulnerability and strength in sharing his story highlights the importance of seeking help and finding meaning in difficult times.

Alan Ritchson is known as the hulking and charimsatic star of Prime Video’s Reacher, but the actor is showing some brave vulnerability detailing an event from his past that sent him spiraling so far that he attempted to hang himself. During a chat with The Hollywood Reporter, via HuffPost, Ritchson revealed that he once worked as a model for brands that included Calvin Klein and Abercrombie & Fitch. It was during this period that his agent arranged for a meeting with who he describes as a “very famous photographer” in Los Angeles which led to a sexual assault:

“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. I left and drove straight to the agency I was at.”

The actor believes that his agent at the time fully knew what was going to happen once he entered that hotel room. Once Ritchson returned to the agency that sent him there, the agent simply smiled and told him it was “not a big deal.”

I stormed in and said, ‘F*ck you for sending me there. You knew what was going to happen, and you did it anyway.’ There was a coy smile [on the agent’s face], knowing he got caught. ‘It’s OK,’ he said. ‘Not a big deal, calm down.’

Ritchson Quit Modeling After the Assault

The agent ultimately told Ritchson he would never be sent back to that photographer and nonchalantly told him that he “can get a little aggressive.” The actor ultimately quit modeling after the incident, despite being “one of the highest paid models at the agency,” although the damage from the encounter had already been done.

Ritchson admits that the sexual assault “left some scars” and that an “existential crisis” led to him attempting suicide in 2019 because he “couldn’t take it anymore.” The actor said, “I hung myself. It all happened so fast, and I was dangling there.” It was ultimately a vision of his sons that stopped him from going through with it.

“They calmly asked me not to do it, and told me that they wanted me to be here, alive and part of their lives. I was diagnosed as bipolar right after. Deep down, I was comforted to know, ‘OK, there’s a name for this.'”

Despite the events he endured throughout his modeling career (Ritchson has detailed other inappropriate encounters with photographers in the past that didn’t reach the level of sexual assault), he was happy it ended when it did, because acting found him soon after. He was able to seamlessly make a career transition that led to appearances on American Idol and a role on Smallville, among other shows.

Now he’s the star of one of the biggest series on Prime Video, Reacher, which has no real end in sight, and he has starred in films such as Fast X and Ordinary Angels. The actor’s own words coming out of this ordeal really define someone that truly knows his purpose in life.

“I came out of that whole thing asking myself, ‘OK, if I am going to choose to be alive here, a decision we all make, some to a greater degree than others, what am I doing? Why am I here?

What I kept falling back on was the meaning and purpose of life as someone who believes that there is a creator and we are created beings, our purpose in life is, without qualification, to make the world a better place and serve others. That is what life is all about.”