Tragic Details About Halle Berry

Halle Berry encountered racism at a very young age thanks to her mother moving their family out of Cleveland's inner city and into the suburbs, where crime rates were lower but the vast majority of children were white.

"While we got taken out of imminent danger, we also got taken out of what was normal for us, and now all of a sudden, we were in an all-white school with all-white kids, like 3 out of 2500 students," Berry recalled in an interview with People, explaining how the bullying started due to her race. "Because my mother was white and my father was Black... we got called Oreos and names, and kids just didn't understand, so we were different. We were the brunt of a lot of jokes." The star also explained that she compensated by pushing herself to excel in her classes, eventually becoming editor of the newspaper, class president, and a cheerleader. "So, I think my need to please and my desire to achieve was because I was constantly trying to prove that I was as good as the other white students," she reflected.

Even though Berry eventually became popular enough to be voted prom queen, she was still accused of cheating her way into the position because no one believed that she could win without stuffing the ballot boxes. "I had worked so hard to be accepted, but when it came to being a standard of beauty for the school, they didn't want me," the actor later reflected in The New York Times, adding that she now found it "sickening" how much she had wanted the approval of her classmates. Berry had to share the title with her blonde runner-up as a co-prom-queen. "That taught me. No more being a dancing bear."

After months of struggling, Halle Berry got a lucky break in 1989 when she was cast in "Living Dolls," a spin-off from the hit sitcom "Who's the Boss?" But she had no idea that one bad day on set would lead to her spending a week in a diabetic coma and receiving the diagnosis that would change her life.

"I felt I needed energy but I didn't even have a minute to pop out and get a chocolate bar. I didn't really know what was wrong," she told the Daily Mail. Although Berry tried to make it through the day, she fainted and woke up in the hospital one week later. As soon as she could understand what was happening, doctors broke the news that she had diabetes and would need daily insulin shots. "They told me I might lose my eyesight, or I could lose my legs," the actor recalled. "I was scared to death." 

Since COVID-19 became a global pandemic, Berry has opened up about her ongoing health fears. "I do feel at risk," the "Monster's Ball" star told Variety in 2020, revealing that she didn't touch anything from the outside world right away. "I'm very strict about quarantining and who is in my bubble." Her diabetes also gives her "a propensity to fracture bones faster than other people," Berry revealed, adding that she had broken three ribs while filming the third "John Wick" film.

Halle Berry first spotted baseballer David Justice when he took part in an MTV celebrity game in 1992, as she told People, and the pair were married less than a year later. But the couple didn't last, sadly, and their divorce was finalized in 1997. "When we were in Bermuda for our anniversary, we both agreed we'd made a mistake with our marriage," Justice explained.

As Berry later admitted, she was emotionally devastated by the split. She even considered committing suicide and actually took her two dogs out to her car one day to asphyxiate herself. "As I sat there sort of waiting for it to happen, it's almost like I had a flash of that good angel and the bad angel on the shoulder," the actor told Barbara Walters, recalling that she was suddenly overcome with the feeling that someone was telling her: "Girl, don't do it."

That voice belonged to her mother, as Berry told Parade magazine (via Reuters). "I was sitting in my car, and I knew the gas was coming when I had an image of my mother finding me," the star reflected, describing how she had pictured her mother's reaction. "She sacrificed so much for her children, and to end my life would be an incredibly selfish thing to do." Berry resolved to work on rediscovering her sense of self, swearing that she "would never be a coward again." And that promise kept Berry going through her next highly publicized break-up.

If you or anyone you know is having suicidal thoughts, please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline by dialing 988 or by calling 1-800-273-TALK (8255).

Halle Berry's bad luck on set continued in 2003 when she lost weeks of work after Robert Downey Jr. broke her arm by grabbing her the wrong way while shooting a scene. The pair were filming "Gothika" at the time, a supernatural thriller set in a psychiatric hospital, and the accident happened during a regular conversation scene rather than any crazy stunt. "It was sort of a fluke," Berry told David Letterman at the time, according to Showbiz Cheat Sheet. "It wasn't a day where the stunt coordinator was there because it wasn't a stunt; nobody was in danger."

Although Downey Jr. addressed the incident publicly, the "Catwoman" star was reportedly still upset with him for not reaching out to her. "She didn't think he was sorry enough. He didn't even send flowers," a source close to Berry revealed, per the National Enquirer. "Whenever she sees him in town, she won't talk to him." His public apology had been short and sweet, as Contact Music reported. "It was an accident, I'm sorry if she's still upset," the "Iron Man" star had insisted. "I did everything I had to do to keep my side of the street clean. I wish her the best."

Although Halle Berry's relationship with male model Gabriel Aubry resulted in a daughter, it also crashed and burned on a very public stage. As TMZ reported, their dramatic custody fight began when Berry tried to move their daughter Nahla to France. Then in 2012, Aubry got into a fistfight with Berry's then-fiance Olivier Martinez, receiving "a fractured rib, bruises to the face and cuts that required stitches" according to the Los Angeles Times. After they clashed at a Thanksgiving Day lunch, the model reported that Martinez had jumped him out of nowhere. "It all happened so fast, so suddenly," Aubry told the courts.

Their courtroom battles continued when Aubry decided to fight for child support despite Berry's criticisms of him as a parent. According to AZ Central, the actor told the court that he had used racial slurs towards her and described how he had changed their daughter's hair by lightening and straightening it. ”I strongly feel that Gabriel's same underlying attitude is at the root in the changes, which only he could have been causing to our daughter's hair," Berry reportedly stated, explaining that Aubry was denying the Black part of Nahla's identity. Despite the accusations of racism, Aubry still ended up receiving $16,000 a month from his famous ex, according to TMZ. This expensive child support bill was cut in half in 2021, however, after Berry argued that it was extortionate.

Although Halle Berry had sworn that she would never get married again after her experiences with David Justice and Eric Benét, she eventually tied the knot one more time in 2013 with a French wedding to Olivier Martinez, per E! News. Two years later, however, she was announcing another divorce. ‎"We move forward with love and respect for one another and the shared focus of what is best for our son," the couple told People. "We wish each other nothing but happiness in life." The real situation might have been more acrimonious than their joint statement made it seem, however, as the court case was still unresolved years later, per the Daily Mail.

Berry opened up about her turbulent love life at a Q&A in 2017, per ET Online. "I have learned to deal with three failed marriages, which has not been easy, especially when there's children involved," she admitted, telling the audience that her main focus was now being a mother. "We go in there with that hope, so when it falls apart it feels like a huge failure and a huge disappointment," the actor continued, revealing that she often felt a lot of guilt over her relationships. "I've suffered a lot of pain and anguish." Berry insisted that she received important lessons from each of her marriages, however. "For that, I'm grateful," she added. "But it has been hard. It's been a difficult part of my life."