Even celebrities aren’t immune to the hazards of gun violence. Over the years, major stars have lived to tell harrowing tales of being shot. Found out which famous entertainers have bounced back from bullet wounds, as well as the story behind their injuries.
Bob Marley
On December 3, 1976, six gunmen arrived at Bob Marley’s home in Kingston, Jamaica and opened fire. According to David Moskowitz’s biography The Words and Music of Bob Marley, multiple people were shot with submachine guns, including the reggae legend’s wife and manager. Marley himself had a bullet graze his sternum and lodge into left bicep.
Amazingly, no one was mortally wounded. Two days later, Marley proceeded with a live performance at Smile Jamaica, a free concert aimed to ease political tensions at the time. Many believed that the assassination attempt was politically motivated, but the singer tried to remain steadfast in his belief that music was a healing force.
“When me decided ta do dis yere concert…me was told were was no politics,” he told the crowd. “I jus’ wanted ta play for da love of da people.”
Trace Adkins
Trace Adkins has certainly lived the kind of life to justify his self-description as a “tough guy.” The recovered alcoholic’s battle scars include surviving a major car accident and being stranded on an offshore oil rig during a hurricane. Perhaps the wildest ordeal was in 1994, when his second wife shot him with a .38 pistol. The bullet pierced his lungs and heart.
“The doctors held little hope that I would survive and told my family and friends to go in and say goodbye,” he wrote in his 2007 autobiography A Personal Stand: Observations and Opinions from a Freethinking Roughneck (via Today).
Alas, Adkins survived and declined to press charges.
50 Cent
Most rap fans know the story of how 50 Cent survived a horrific attack in 2000, but the details of the incident never fails to leave first-time listeners stunned. Fifty was sitting in a car when he was shot nine times at close range with a 9mm handgun; the bullets struck his hand, arm, hip, both legs, chest, and left cheek. According to Hot 97, a bullet fragment remains lodged inside his mouth, giving the rapper his distinct slur.
The alleged shooter, Mike Tyson’s ex-bodyguard and close friend Darryl “Homicide” Baum, was shot and killed a few months later.
Oliver Stone
The famed director of Platoon drew from his own experience in the Vietnam War to inform his work as a filmmaker. Stone served from 1967 to 1968, where he was twice wounded in combat.
“I’d been wounded and evacuated twice,” he wrote in a July 2020 edition of The Mail on Sunday. “The first when a piece of shrapnel (or possibly a bullet) went clean through my neck in a night ambush; the second after a daylight enemy ambush, where shrapnel from a charge planted in a tree penetrated my legs and buttocks.”
Stone received the Purple Heart for his sacrifice.
Jennifer O’Neill
Brazilian-American model Jennifer O’Neill was a sensation in the 1960s, appearing on the covers of Vogue and Cosmopolitan and starring alongside John Wayne in her first lead role as an actress (Rio Lobo.) In 1982, the brunette beauty survived a shooting at her own hands.
“It was an accident…I hate guns,” O’Neill told Fox News in 2019. “I went up to our bedroom and my son was having dinner with the nanny. I noticed that the safe kept in the closet was wide open. When I looked closer, there was [my husband’s] gun lying in a bowl of bullets. I was so furious because my son could have easily reached it.”
“I picked up what turned out to be a 38-caliber and it went off,” she continued. “It shot through my hip and stomach…But again, God saved my life. I could have been completely paralyzed. God has been protecting me all these years.”
Peter Fonda
The late actor Peter Fonda lived to the age of 79, but his life was almost cut short much sooner. In 1951, the Easy Rider star accidentally shot himself with a .22 caliber pistol.
Fonda allegedly recounted the story to members of the Beatles while they tripped on acid together in the 1960s, but he was promptly told to stop talking.
“I told [George Harrison] there was nothing to be afraid of and that all he needed to do was relax,” Fonda said. “I said that I knew what it was like to be dead because when I was ten years old, I’d accidentally shot myself in the stomach and my heart stopped beating three times while I was on the operating table because I’d lost so much blood.”
“We didn’t want to hear about that!” said Lennon. “This guy—who I really didn’t know—kept coming over, wearing shades, saying, ‘I know what it’s like to be dead,’ and we kept leaving him because he was so boring!”
Megan Thee Stallion
In July 2020, the “Hot Girl” rapper made a startling revelation on Instagram.
“On Sunday morning, I suffered gunshot wounds, as a result of a crime that was committed against me and done with the intention to physically harm me,” she wrote in a public note (via Billboard). “I was never arrested, the police officers drove me to the hospital where I underwent surgery to remove the bullets. I’m incredibly grateful to be alive and that I’m expected to make a full recovery, but it was important for me to clarify the details about this traumatic night.”
Rapper Tory Lane was later charged for the crime. As of August 2021, pending his criminal case, his bail was increased after violating a court order to stay away from Megan.
Lil Wayne
Rapper Lil Wayne says he was so dedicated to pursuing a rap career that he once almost ended his life over it. At 12, he shot himself in the chest, narrowly missing his heart. According to Billboard, he initially told people that the wound was the result of an accident. He later admitted it was a failed suicide attempt after his mother forbade him from rapping.
“So, I picked up the phone, I called the police,” he said in an Uncomfortable Conversations interview (via XXL). “Yes, I knew where she kept her gun. And it was in her bedroom. And so I went in her bedroom, grabbed the gun. I already made the phone call. Looked in the mirror. How I knew I had mental health problems was I pulled the trigger.”
David Ortiz
In June 2019, retired Boston Red Sox star David Ortiz was shot in the back at a bar in the Dominican Republic. Investigators determined that the incident was a botched attempt to murder his friend, Sixto David Fernandez.
The player known affectionately as “Big Papi” underwent three surgeries and a seven week-long hospital stay but survived the ordeal.
“Being at home and look at my family celebrating that l’m here safe is priceless…Thank for all the prayers,” he said in his first public statement after the shooting.
Kelly Preston
Before marrying John Travolta, the late Kelly Preston had a year-long romance with Charlie Sheen. During that time, she was shot in the arm; incredibly, Sheen was not at fault for the injury.
“She lifted my pants off the scale in the bathroom and the tiny revolver I used to carry, it fell out of the back jeans pocket and hit the floor and shot a bullet right between her legs,” Sheen explained in his defense (via the Mirror).
“So she got hit with shrapnel from the toilet bowl. For years people thought, there was always this conversation, this discussion about the time I tried to kill Kelly Preston.”
Andy Warhol
On June 3, 1968, pop art legend Andy Warhol was shot by Valerie Solanas, a feminist author who claimed that Warhol “had too much control” over her life. Bullets punctured his stomach, liver, spleen, esophagus, and lungs. He was reportedly pronounced dead at one point, but went on to live 19 more years. However, Warhol was forced to wear a surgical corset for the rest of his life.
Warhol was notoriously elusive, but in The Andy Warhol Diaries, he wrote that the attack had taken a piece of his spirit.
“I wasn’t creative since I was shot,” he wrote, “because after that I stopped seeing creepy people.”
Garrett Morris
Old school comedy nerds remember Garrett Morris as one of the original cast members of Saturday Night Live. In February 1994, he was shot and critically wounded in a stick-up in South Central Los Angeles. Morris endured gunshot wounds to his chest and arm.
Morris fell into a coma and underwent ten surgeries before making a full recovery. He revealed that he was actually written off of the sitcom Martin while he was in the hospital, but he didn’t let the news get him down.
“I could have been dead, so I was so overjoyed at being alive,” he said. “That was actually nothing.”
Ol’ Dirty Bastard
The late Wu Tang Clan member Ol’ Dirty Bastard had a pretty messy criminal history and survived two shootings in his lifetime. In July 1998, he suffered a superficial gunshot wound when his Brooklyn home was invaded by robbers. And in 1994, he was shot in the stomach by another rapper after getting into a street argument in the Bed-Stuy neighborhood of Brooklyn.
But Ol’ Dirty Bastard’s 2004 death was sadly caused by a drug overdose.