Over the weekend, Ruby Rose, the star of The CW’s “Batwoman,” posted a graphic video on Instagram that showed her receiving “emergency surgery” after she herniated two discs while doing a stunt on the set of the upcoming superhero series.
On Monday’s “Tonight Show,” Rose explained the injury and subsequent surgery in detail for host Jimmy Fallon, an experience she, understandably says was “really, really terrifying.”
Rose said she was doing one particular stunt for about seven hours on the “Batwoman” set and thought she had broken a rib, which she assumed would take six to 12 weeks to heal. But her chronic pain persisted during that time and doctors told her the injury had to be in her neck, so she got an MRI while on the set of a film in Romania and sent it to her physician back home.
“He called and was like, ‘You could become paraplegic. This is your spine, two of your discs have herniated and they’ve broken all the protective layers. You have like this tiny amount that your spine is like not severed. And if you don’t get back, you could become paraplegic.’ Even just like sleeping wrong or moving my head in a strange direction,” Rose said.
The actress came home and had the surgery and spent 10 days recovering. But prior to her diagnosis, Rose says she “couldn’t feel [her] arms for a long time, but you just get used to weird things like that.”
“I wasn’t paying attention to my body, I wasn’t listening,” she said. “I was in such a hurry to get everything done. I was like, ‘Batwoman,’ yes to the pilot. And now I’m going to do this film. I’m going to come back, we’re going to pick up the series. But I just wasn’t listening, and I think that was the world’s of saying like, ‘You’re going to have to pay attention and you’re going to have to slow down and you’re not actually a superhero and you need to get some priorities straight.’
Watch the video above.
“Batwoman” premieres Sunday at 8/7c on The CW.