AP/InvisionBeing mates with Leonardo DiCaprio sounds great, doesn’t it?
Wrong. I mean, there would probably be a whole load of upsides to being BFFs with Leo, but then there’s the imminent threat of death.
In a recent interview with Wired, the Hollywood superstar revealed the full extent of his many brushes with death – as he says: “My friends have named me the person they least want to do extreme adventures with, because I always seem to be very close to being part of a disaster. If a cat has nine lives, I think I’ve used a few.”
Leo told Wired about his close encounter with a shark:
A great white jumped into my cage when I was diving in South Africa. Half its body was in the cage, and it was snapping at me.
They leave the tops open and you have a regulator line running to the surface. Then they chum the water with tuna. A wave came and the tuna sort of flipped up into the air. A shark jumped up and grabbed the tuna, and half its body landed inside the cage with me. I sort of fell down to the bottom and tried to lie flat. The great white took about five or six snaps an arm’s length away from my head. The guys there said that has never happened in the 30 years they’d been doing it… [The shark] flipped itself back out again. I have it on video. It’s insane.
(Not Leo) - Credit: Project AwareSounds it. But what other near-death experiences has he had?
Then there was this Delta Airlines flight to Russia. I was in business class, and an engine blew up in front of my eyes. It was right after “Sully” Sullenberger landed in the Hudson. I was sitting there looking out at the wing, and the entire wing exploded in a fireball. I was the only one looking out at the moment this giant turbine exploded like a comet. It was crazy. They shut all the engines off for a couple of minutes, so you’re just sitting there gliding with absolutely no sound, and nobody in the plane was saying anything. It was a surreal experience. They started the engines back up, and we did an emergency landing at JFK.
Jesus. Anything else?
The other one was the skydiving incident. It was a tandem dive. We pulled the first chute. That was knotted up. The gentleman I was with cut it free. We did another free fall for like another 5, 10 seconds. I didn’t even think about the extra chute, so I thought we were just plummeting to our death. He pulled the second, and that was knotted up too. He just kept shaking it and shaking it in midair, as all my friends were, you know, what felt like half a mile above me, and I’m plummeting toward earth. [Laughs.] And he finally unravels it in midair. The fun part was when he said, “You’re probably going to break your legs on the way down, because we’re going too fast now.” So after you see your whole life flash in front of your eyes—twice—he says, “Oh, your legs are going to get broken too.”
Fortunately Leo said they did a barrel roll and only ended up with bruises.
Maybe being best mates with Leonardo DiCaprio isn’t as amazing as it sounds… I’ll just stick to a few pints down the pub.
