Salma Hayek secretly battled COVID-19 for the better part of last year but is now opening up about her scary health situation.
The legendary actress revealed that she was isolated for nearly seven weeks during an interview with Variety on Mary 19. The “Eternals” star said she required oxygen because her condition was so severe.
“My doctor begged me to go to the hospital because it was so bad,” she told Variety during a Zoom meeting from her home in London. “I said, ‘No, thank you. I’d rather die at home.’”
She told Variety that she spent seven weeks in one room while in isolation… we are sure it was a very nice room, but she was in no mood to enjoy it. In fact, the outlet reports that she still hasn’t fully regained the energy she once had.
However, she did return to work in April to film Ridley Scott’s “House of Gucci.” Hayek plays the clairvoyant who was convicted of helping Patrizia Reggiani, played by Lady Gaga, orchestrate the killing of Maurizio Gucci, her ex-husband played by Adam Driver. Since she doesn’t play the main character, she enjoyed getting back into the swing of things. “It was not a lot of time,” she said. “It was easy. It was the perfect job to just get back into it. I had started doing Zooms at one point, but I could only do so many because I would get so tired.”
Salma is scheduled to make her post-COVID big screen debut with “The Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard.” She stars alongside Ryan Reynolds, who spoke about what kind of co-star Hayek is after the first one premiered in 2017.
“She comes to set with a writer’s mind and outlook. She’s constantly improving, rewriting and reminding us all what the scene is actually about. She comes to play and build,” Ryan said at the time.
He also revealed that she packs a punch. “In ‘Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard,’ I’m slapped in the face twice by Salma and once by Samuel L. Jackson,” Reynolds said. “For the record, it was Salma who didn’t pull the punches. Not even once. I can still feel the sharp sting of her tiny hand working its way into my soft Hollywood cheekbones. May God have mercy on her soul.”
