logo
Samuel L. Jackson once survived being dragged by New York subway train in harrowing accident

Samuel L. Jackson once survived being dragged by New York subway train in harrowing accident

News.com.au2 days ago

While Samuel L. Jackson is no stranger to intense scenes on the silver screen, the Hollywood actor recalled a near-death experience that almost took his life.
The Pulp Fiction star opened up about the harrowing moment he was nearly killed after a serious incident on a New York subway train in 1988.
'I got dragged by a subway train in New York … I got dragged by the A train,' Jackson revealed on the Mad Sad Bad podcast with host Paloma Faith.
'I was in the middle door of the last car, and it was a long-ass train station. And when the door closed on my foot, [the] train took off. So, I'm sitting there thinking, I'm like, 'Oh, f**k, I'm going to die.''
Jackson, 76, recalled how the accident unfolded in a split second. After the subway doors clamped down on his foot, Jackson found himself stuck as the train began to move, dragging him toward the tunnel.
'I could see the tunnel coming, and I couldn't figure out anything that I could grab or hold on to and get close to the train, so I wouldn't get killed in the tunnel,' he continued.
While his life flashed before his eyes, he explained, a person on the train had crutches and rushed to halt the train.
'It just slowed down really, really slow,' Jackson recalled. 'Until all of a sudden the train stopped.'
Jackson continued to share his perspective on nearly dying as he experienced the brush with death.
'Things slow down when you're looking at death,' he remarked. 'I've been in car accidents and if I see them, it's almost like everything is slowing down, and you know there's nothing you can do to get out of the way.'
When asked whether fear had gripped him while he was trapped in the subway doors, Jackson shared his honest thoughts.
'When I was being dragged, all I could think of was, it was going to be a really sad Christmas, because it was like a few days before Christmas,' he said. 'So I was going to miss my birthday and all that. I was like, 'Damn, it's gonna be f***ed up. It's gonna be a f***ed up Christmas this year.''
The Unbreakable actor previously detailed the accident to Vanity Fair. He shared that he had suffered a complete tear of his ACL and a partial tear of his meniscus, plus 'lots of cartilage damage.'
Jackson had to get his right knee surgically repaired after the incident. This resulted in him spending ten months on crutches and more than a year in physical rehab.
'For the rest of his life, he would have a couple of extra screws in his right leg,' the magazine reported.

Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

NEWS OF THE WEEK: Miley Cyrus reveals reason for previous rift with Billy Ray Cyrus
NEWS OF THE WEEK: Miley Cyrus reveals reason for previous rift with Billy Ray Cyrus

News.com.au

time40 minutes ago

  • News.com.au

NEWS OF THE WEEK: Miley Cyrus reveals reason for previous rift with Billy Ray Cyrus

Last month, the Flowers hitmaker revealed she and her father had "done a lot of healing" following long-standing feud rumours. Speaking to The New York Times recently, Miley indicated her parents' divorce after nearly three decades together led to the conflict. "I think timing is everything. As I've gotten older, I'm respecting my parents as individuals instead of as parents - because my mom's really loved my dad for her whole life and I think being married to someone in the music industry and not being a part of it is obviously really hard.'

NEWS OF THE WEEK: Sydney Sweeney discusses collapse of her engagement
NEWS OF THE WEEK: Sydney Sweeney discusses collapse of her engagement

News.com.au

time2 hours ago

  • News.com.au

NEWS OF THE WEEK: Sydney Sweeney discusses collapse of her engagement

The 27-year-old Euphoria star had been engaged to longtime partner Jonathan Davino, 41, for three years before they abruptly split earlier this year. The TV star has been reasonably tight-lipped over the end of her relationship but has now given a very to-the-point response when discussing her romantic life. Opening up to The Sunday Times, Sweeney was asked if she was still planning her wedding - and she bluntly replied, "No." Delicately pressing on, the interviewer then asked the actress if she was single, and she confirmed her status by responding, "Yes."

How Harvey Weinstein's New York rape and sexual assault retrial unfolded
How Harvey Weinstein's New York rape and sexual assault retrial unfolded

ABC News

time5 hours ago

  • ABC News

How Harvey Weinstein's New York rape and sexual assault retrial unfolded

Harvey Weinstein has admitted in an interview he "acted immorally" but maintained his innocence at the end of a six-week retrial in New York. Warning: This story contains details about sexual abuse that readers may find distressing Weinstein, the former Hollywood honcho turned #MeToo outcast, is charged in New York with raping Jessica Mann in 2013 and forcing oral sex on Miriam Haley and Kaja Sokola, separately, in 2006. He has pleaded not guilty to all charges and faces up to 25 years in prison if convicted. As Weinstein awaits his verdict in New York for a second time, here is how the past six weeks unfolded. Weinstein is on trial again after a New York state appeals court threw out his 2020 convictions, citing irregularities in the original proceedings. In particular, it included evidence from women whose charges were not part of the case. The former movie industry titan's 23-year prison sentence for the initial conviction was thrown out, but he remains imprisoned for separate offences in California. Miriam Haley returns to the courtroom at before Harvey Weinstein's retrial in state court in Manhattan on Friday, May 2. ( AP: John Angelillo/Pool ) Miriam Haley, who also goes by Mimi Haley, was the first accuser to take the stand. She also testified in Weinstein's first trial. Born in Finland and raised in Sweden, Ms Haley, 48, is a former entertainment producer now working in advertising. She met Weinstein through a mutual connection. She alleges Weinstein assaulted her after inviting her to stop by his apartment. She had worked briefly as a production assistant on the Weinstein-produced TV show Project Runway, and his company had booked her a flight to Los Angeles the next day to attend a movie premiere. She testified Weinstein backed her into a bedroom and pushed her onto a bed, holding her down as she tried to get up and pleaded: "No, no — it's not going to happen." Ms Haley and two of her friends testified she told them soon after that Weinstein had sexually assaulted her. She maintains she was never interested in any sexual or romantic relationship with Weinstein but still wanted his help professionally. Weinstein's lawyer, Jennifer Bonjean, questioned why Ms Haley would agree to go to Weinstein's apartment after being put off by some of his prior behaviour, including what she described as him barging into her home as he sought to persuade her to go to Paris with him. Ms Haley said she thought it would be "weird" to refuse the invitation to his Manhattan loft, since his company had paid for the LA flight she was taking the next day. Ms Haley stayed in continued, sporadic contact with Weinstein for about three years afterward, according to testimony and documents. At times, she asked him for work, premiere tickets and financial backing for an online TV show she was trying to launch. "The other stuff is neither here nor there. It doesn't mean that I wasn't sexually assaulted," Haley said. Ms Bonjean also queried her about her continued interactions with Weinstein and his assistants, about her frequent travels and famous acquaintances at the time, and her 2020 lawsuit against Weinstein. It ended in a $US475,000 ($730,000) settlement. Kaja Sokola Kaja Sokola arrives at Manhattan Criminal Court before Harvey Weinstein's trial on Wednesday, May 14, 2025. ( AP: John Angelillo/Pool ) Former model Kaja Sokola was the second accuser to testify in the retrial. Prosecutors spoke to her privately in 2020, but her claim was never told to the jury in the original trial. The Polish-born 39-year-old is a psychotherapist and author who recently launched a film production company. She sued Weinstein after industry whispers about his behaviour toward women became a chorus of public accusations in 2017. Ms Sokola eventually received $US3.5 million ($5.4 million) in compensation. The criminal charge stems from one instance when Ms Sokola maintains Weinstein forcibly performed oral sex on her in a Manhattan hotel in May 2006. Ms Sokola began modelling at 14 but told jurors she was always more interested in acting, so she was hopeful when she was introduced to Weinstein at a New York nightclub in 2002 and he invited her to lunch to talk about acting. Instead, he steered her to his Manhattan apartment and told her to take her clothes off, saying that actors had to be comfortable disrobing in films, she testified. Ms Sokola took off her blouse and followed him into a bathroom because, she said, "I was 16 years old, and I was alone with a man for the first time, and I didn't know what else to do." She said she told Weinstein she objected to what was happening, but that he put his hand inside her underwear and made her touch his genitals. Ms Sokola said she saw Weinstein's eyes — "black and scary" — staring at her in a bathroom mirror as it happened. Afterward, she said, he told her to keep quiet, saying he had made Hollywood careers and could help her acting dreams come true. In 2006, Weinstein arranged for her to be an extra for a day in the film The Nanny Diaries, and he separately agreed to meet Ms Sokola and her visiting elder sister. After the three chatted, Ms Sokola said, Weinstein told her he had a script to show her in his hotel room, and she went up with him. There, she said, Weinstein pushed her onto a bed and stripped off her boots, her stockings, her underwear, and something indelible. "My soul was removed from me," she testified. She said he held her down while ignoring her pleas of "please don't, please stop, I don't want this." Ms Sokola said she tried to push him away but was no match against Weinstein's physical heft. She rejoined her sister but said nothing about being assaulted. Ms Sokola said she didn't want to tell her sister that Weinstein had treated her with such disrespect, she testified. Throughout a day of questioning, Weinstein's lawyer Mike Cibella suggested Ms Sokola hadn't told the full story of her interactions with Weinstein. He repeatedly asked whether she invited Weinstein up to a New York apartment — and into the bedroom — where she was staying in 2005. She denied it. Mr Cibella also presented Ms Sokola's journal, which she had kept for an alcohol abuse program, where she names at least two people who had sexually assaulted her, neither one of them Weinstein. She testified she didn't write about him because she couldn't come to terms with it at the time, and her sponsor was in the film business and knew who Weinstein was. Jessica Mann Jessica Mann arrives at state court in Manhattan for before the start of Harvey Weinstein's trial on Thursday, May 22, 2025. ( AP: Spencer Platt/Pool ) Jessica Mann was the last of the three accusers to testify in the retrial. She also spoke at the 2020 trial. Ms Mann, a cosmetologist and hairstylist, said she met Weinstein at a party in late 2012 or early 2013, when she was 27 and had recently moved to LA to try to launch an acting career. She said he took an interest in her ambitions, and they had a few follow-up meetings that alternated between professional talk and boundary-pushing, particularly a request for a massage that Ms Mann said she reluctantly gave him. Weinstein invited her to an Oscars bash that Ms Mann, new to Hollywood glitz, attended in her high-school prom dress. She said she wasn't attracted to Weinstein and initially refused his first sexual advance, but eventually succumbed to him performing oral sex because Weinstein said he would not let her leave until she let him "do something." Although she felt confused and "defiled," she then agreed to consensual encounters with the then-married man, she said. Partly, she worried about the professional consequences of alienating a powerful producer who had just dangled the prospect of movie roles. She also recalled thinking that "if I was in a relationship, maybe it would feel different," and that "maybe he did like me." In March 2013, she travelled to New York with a friend. After they made plans for breakfast with Weinstein, he showed up early and got a room at Ms Mann's hotel, over her protests, she said. Weeping on the witness stand, she said she went upstairs with Weinstein to try to avoid a public argument and told him, "I don't want to do this," but he shoved the door shut as she tried to leave. After Weinstein demanded she undress and grabbed her arms, she said, she "just gave up." Ms Mann said he then had sex with her — after, she believes, injecting himself with an erection-promoting drug that she later found in the bathroom trash. Ms Mann described Weinstein grabbing, dragging, forcefully undressing and raping her in a Beverly Hills, California, hotel room around the beginning of 2014, after she told him she was dating someone else. After leaving he defence table Ms Mann aimed a finger at her eyes and then at him. It prompted lawyer Arthur Aidala to request a mistrial, also complaining she shouldn't have been asked about the LA rape as Weinstein wasn't charged with it. During questioning, Weinstein's lawyer Arthur Aidala noted she accepted party invitations, dinners and rides from Weinstein and underscored the fact that she continued to see the producer after he allegedly raped her. Mr Aidala also zeroed in on her testimony that she tried to reject Weinstein's first sexual advance but ultimately pretended to enjoy it. Ewa Sokola Ewa Sokola arrives to Harvey Weinstein's court case in New York, Tuesday, May 6, 2025. ( AP: Seth Wenig ) Kaja's Sokola sister Ewa Sokola met with Kaja and Weinstein the day of the alleged assault, she told jurors. Prosecutors have said it happened after Weinstein arranged for Ms Sokola to be an extra in the film The Nanny Diaries and met her visiting older sister, whom she was trying to impress. "She was proud of knowing him," her sister, cardiologist Dr Ewa Sokola, told jurors. She said the three of them met in a hotel lobby, chatted about Italian movies and the heavy-set Weinstein's heart health, and then he and the model left the table together. Kaja Sokola was tense when she returned about a half-hour later — "like somebody waiting for the result of an exam" or the Oscars — but didn't say anything about the alleged sexual assault, Dr Sokola told jurors. She said she was shocked to learn about the claim over a decade later, when she read about it in a magazine article. Christine Pressman Christine Pressman, a friend of Miriam Haley, testified she was told long ago about the sexual assault. "She had zero interest in dating him or sleeping with him," Ms Pressman said, describing Ms Haley as "distraught" when she later disclosed the alleged sexual assault. Ms Pressman said she advised against turning to police. "I said, 'Harvey Weinstein is the king of New York. He's extremely powerful. You are not. You're here on a tourist visa. Just let it go,'" the former model, musician and actor recalled. She teared up as she added that she now knows her guidance "was wrong." Under questioning from Ms Bonjean, Ms Pressman acknowledged that at some point before the alleged assault, she suggested Ms Haley date Weinstein. Ms Pressman later explained that she had been frustrated by her friend's taste in men — guys who were lanky, cerebral "and broke," as Ms Pressman put it. Elizabeth Entin Elizabeth Entin, pictured at the 2020 trial. ( AP: Craig Ruttle ) Elizabeth Entin, Ms Haley's former roommate, said a shaken Ms Haley told her that month that Weinstein had forcibly performed oral sex on her. Echoing her testimony at the first trial, Ms Entin said she suggested Haley call a lawyer, but her friend seemed disinclined. Elizabeth Perz Elizabeth Perz, an ex-aide for Weinstein, told the jury she kept a list of female "friends of Harvey" to invite to events and sometimes considered them a special category for guest lists. "A 'friend of Harvey' was a woman that he'd meet at events or parties or festivals or — somewhere," she said. The then-married Weinstein asked his assistants to invite these women to events, Ms Perz said. Jurors were shown a roster of well over a dozen names, which Ms Perz said was kept in the office at Weinstein's company. The names were broken down by geography, such as "LA Friends" or "Cannes/Etc/all invites." One "LA Friends" entry was Jessica Mann. Helga Samuelsen Helga Samuelsen shared a New York apartment with Kaja Sokola. Ms Samuelsen testified one evening the doorbell rang, Ms Sokola answered it and there was Weinstein. Ms Sokola previously said Weinstein had not spent time at their apartment. Ms Samuelsen recalled Weinstein and Ms Sokola went into a bedroom, closed the door and emerged about a half-hour later, when Ms Sokola saw Weinstein out. Ms Samuelsen said she never spoke to Ms Sokola about the visit. Having met Weinstein briefly in summer 2005, she later sought his help as she tried to launch a music career. He made some introductions and invited her to write a never-used movie score, Ms Samuelsen said, and she formed a New York-area cabaret act around 2019 with a woman close to him. Ms Samuelsen now works in insurance in her native Denmark. Talita Maia Talita Maia pictured at the 2020 trial. ( AP: Seth Wenig ) Talita Maia gave testimony via transcript read by court employees. Ms Maia and Ms Mann were roommates and friends in 2013 but later fell out. According to Ms Maia, Ms Mann never mentioned in those days that Weinstein had hurt her in any way. Both Ms Maia and another witness, Thomas Richards, met up with Ms Mann and Weinstein shortly after Ms Mann has said she was raped. Both witnesses testified that they saw nothing amiss. The two sides took very different tones in their closing arguments. Weinstein's lawyer, Arthur Aidala, veered into folksy jokes and theatricality — sometimes re-enacting witnesses' behaviour — as he contended that his client engaged in a "courting game," not crimes. Prosecutor Nicole Blumberg, as direct as Mr Aidala was discursive, urged jurors to focus on Weinstein's accusers and their days of gruelling testimony. "This was not a 'courting game,' as Mr Aidala wants you to believe. This was not a 'transaction,'" she told jurors. Mr Aidala argued everything that happened between the ex-producer and his accusers was a consensual, if "transactional," exchange of favours. The attorney accused prosecutors of "trying to police the bedroom" and zeroing in on the man seen as "the poster boy, the original sinner, for the #MeToo movement." Mr Aidala depicted the former studio boss as a self-made New Yorker, while painting Weinstein's accusers as troubled and canny "women with broken dreams" who plied him for movie opportunities and other perks, kept engaging with him for years and then turned on him to cash in on his #MeToo undoing. All three received compensation through legal processes separate from the criminal trial. Ms Blumberg countered that Weinstein interpreted a sexual "no" as a cue to "push a little bit more, and if they still say no, just take it anyway." She argued that his accusers stayed in friendly contact with Weinstein because they were trying to work in entertainment, and they feared their careers would be squashed if they crossed him. "He chose people who he thought would be the perfect victims, who he could rape and keep silent," the prosecutor said. "He underestimated them." Although Weinstein did not take the stand, he spoke out in an interview aired by FOX5 television on Friday as the jury considered six weeks of testimony. "But never illegal, never criminal, never anything." Weinstein pointed to comments from Mr Aidala, who suggested the three women who testified against him at trial "had four million reasons to testify, as in dollars." The jury is made of seven women and five men who began deliberating on Thursday. After two days they are yet to reach a verdict. One juror has been replaced with an alternate after they fell ill. Another juror asked to be removed because he felt his fellow jurors were treating a member of their panel in an "unfair and unjust" way, but the judge told him he had to keep deliberating. Judge Curtis Farber later denied a defence request for a mistrial, saying he believed the juror was simply expressing discomfort in the deliberation process, noting that he was the youngest on the 12-person panel. Deliberations will continue on Monday.

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into the world of global news and events? Download our app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store