Actress reveals the REAL reason she fled Hollywood that nearly drove her to suicide

A former 90s bombshell has opened up about the dark sides to fame that caused her to leave Hollywood and nearly drove her to suicide.

Lenore Zann, 65, started acting when she was just a teen, landing roles in a slew of movies and TV shows throughout the ’80s and ’90s.

But as her career flourished, she began to struggle with the immense pressure of being a young Hollywood starlet.

On the outside, she looked like a shining new star, dazzling red carpet events and wowing on the screen – but behind-the-scenes she was battling fierce anxiety and a growing drinking problem.

She also experienced a shocking sexual assault from a director when she was only 19, leaving her shaken to her core and only fueling her need to ‘self-medicate.’

Lenore turned to partying to ease her pain, ultimately becoming an alcoholic and drinking incessantly night after night until it got so bad she started to throw up blood.

She even developed suicidal ideations, admitting in a shocking sit-down with the Daily Mail: ‘I didn’t care if I lived or died.’

But her turning point came at age 36 after she hit rock bottom, when she joined Alcoholics Anonymous – and she has been sober ever since. 

An actress has opened up about the dark sides to fame, revealing she endured a horrific sexual assault at age 19 and ultimately fled Hollywood after the pressure nearly drove her to suicide

Lenore Zann, 65, started acting when she was just a teen, landing roles in a slew of movies and TV throughout the ’80s and ’90s. She’s seen in the 1998 movie Babyface

On the outside, Lenore (seen in 1992) looked like a shining new star, dazzling red carpet events and wowing on the screen – but she was secretly battling anxiety and a drinking problem

Lenore has since joined the world of politics, representing the electoral district of Truro-Bible Hill in the Nova Scotia House of Assembly from 2009 until 2019 in Canada, where she grew up.

Her acting career has also had a massive resurgence, as she returned to play Rogue in the beloved Disney+ show X-Men ’97 last year.

It’s an epic comeback for the girl who once spent every morning starring at a toilet bowl, sick from a long night of drinking, and a happy twist to a story that could have ended very differently had Lenore not gotten help.

Lenore laid bare her sensational journey exclusively with the Daily Mail.

She recalled how she started her career off by acting in various plays in Canada.

But the starry-eyed young actress’ hopes and dreams quickly had a shadow cast over them after a director for the first role she was cast in at age 19 sexually assaulted her.

‘When I was 19, I was chosen to play Marilyn Monroe in this rock opera called Hey Marilyn in Edmonton, Canada,’ she recalled.

‘The artistic director of the theater invited me down to have a swim in the pool at the place we were all staying.

She also experienced a shocking sexual assault from a director when she was only 19, leaving her shaken to her core and only fueling her need to ‘self-medicate.’ She’s seen in 1980

Lenore (seen in the early years of career) turned to partying to ease her pain, ultimately becoming an alcoholic and drinking incessantly until it got so bad she started to throw up blood

‘His pregnant wife was upstairs, and he came onto me. He sort of pushed me up against the side of the wall of the pool and tried to kiss me. 

‘I just froze, but I managed to swim underneath his arms and get away. And then I just played coy because I didn’t know what else to do. 

She even developed suicidal ideations, admitting in a shocking sit-down with the Daily Mail: ‘I didn’t care if I lived or died’

‘I had never had anything like this happen to me before. I made an excuse about needing to get back to my room, and I escaped.’

Lenore said the man ‘continued to harass her’ after that, calling her late at night and asking questions like, ‘What are you wearing?’

‘It was awful. Here I was, 19 years old, a young actress, my first time away from home, way across the other side of the country from my parents, who were in Nova Scotia,’ she continued. 

Eventually, she said she confronted the man and told him that their relationship needed to stay professional, but she said he got ‘really angry’ and ‘pretended that he didn’t know what she was talking about.’ 

Afterwards, she claimed he ‘refused to direct her’ and ‘humiliated her in front of the whole company’ by screaming at her a few days before opening night.

‘I think that there are some people who need to have power over others,’ she reflected.

‘And sometimes it can be women who do it, too. They just need to be the ones in power, and they like to have power over others, or they need to treat other people badly so that they feel better themselves. And I think it’s really a sad thing.

But her turning point came at age 36 after she hit rock bottom, when she joined Alcoholics Anonymous – and she has been sober ever since. She’s seen earlier this year

Lenore has since joined the world of politics, representing the electoral district of Truro-Bible Hill in the Nova Scotia House of Assembly from 2009 until 2019 in Canada, where she grew up

‘Recently there was one agent in Los Angeles who did something similar to me, again, this time when I was in my early-mid 30s.

‘My advice there is for any person who’s been sexually assaulted or raped, please go and seek therapy because I kept it quiet for 30 years. 

‘I didn’t let it out. I swept it under the rug, and I didn’t do anything to try and alleviate the pain from that. And I ended up self-medicating with substances.’

Lenore went to Hollywood in her early 20s to try to switch from stage acting to movie and TV roles. And at first, she was dazzled by it all.

‘I came very close to getting some really big shows and movies. I met with Steven Spielberg and a bunch of other amazing people. It was all still pretty exciting at that point in time,’ she said.

Her early roles include slasher film Happy Birthday to Me, sci-fi movie Murder by Phone, apocalyptic movie Dec-Con4, and 1998’s Babyface, amongst others. During the ’90s, she also famously voiced Rogue in X-Men: The Animated Series. 

But as time went by, Lenore started to see the dark sides to fame.

‘I started to feel that there were so many people that were just so desperate to get fame and fortune,’ she explained.

‘The pressures on a young actor [are intense]. The pressure to make a living, to be able to pay your rent or your mortgage, put food on the table for your family…

‘And you have [so much] competition. The competition is immense. So there’s a great deal of angst involved with that.

‘There were women who were really starving themselves to death to try and look like little toothpicks. And it really made me feel sad. 

‘I found that some of my my female friends were having trouble with body image, with these skinny little toothpicks that they had to compete against.

Her acting career has also had a massive resurgence, as she returned to play Rogue in the beloved Disney+ show X-Men ’97 last year. She’s seen in December

Lenore laid bare her sensational journey exclusively with the Daily Mail

‘One friend even got to the point where she was only eating carrots. Her skin turned orange, and her eyes went kind of yellow, and her mother had to come and look after her and get her to therapy to learn that she needed to eat. 

‘These are the kinds of pressures that occur when you’re really trying to be amongst the best of the best.’

Lenore explained that she started drinking as a teen because there was nothing else to do in the ‘small town’ she grew up in.

And after she launched her career as an actress, it only got worse, as she recalled partying to ‘fit in.’

And after she left Hollywood and headed back to Canada in her early 30s – where she went back to performing in theater – her alcoholism only grew worse.

‘After the show I would go out with my cast members, and we would drink, and then we would go home, and then I’d sleep in, and then I’d get up and go do it again,’ she said. 

‘I discovered by my mid-30s that it was becoming more than just for fun. It was like, I need it now.

‘I would wake up with anxiety and I wouldn’t be able to sleep at night, and so I would drink to try and put myself to sleep. 

‘But then I would stay awake longer, and I would just keep drinking. It really did become a vicious circle. 

‘The alcohol made me anxious, and I drank to try and deal with the anxiety. So I was basically self-medicating.’ 

It got so bad that she began to notice blood in her vomit.

‘I felt kind of happy because I felt like, ‘OK I’m closer to death now.’ I really didn’t care if I lived or died,’ admitted the star.

But at age 36, she had what she called ‘a moment of awakening.’

Most recently, Lenore has released her own book, entitled A Rogue’s Tale: A Memoir , and is gearing up to star in the new Syfy series Revival

She told the Daily Mail of her past drinking problem: ‘The alcohol made me anxious, and I drank to try and deal with the anxiety. So I was basically self-medicating’

‘The turning point for me was when I discovered that every single morning I was vomiting into the toilet,’ Lenore explained.

‘One morning I woke up and I vomited and I said to myself, ‘How depressing. The first thing you see every morning is the bottom of a toilet bowl.’

‘Suddenly, I had sort of a moment of awakening. It was like a spiritual awakening as I was kneeling at the toilet. 

‘I realized that I needed to let go of all of my fears and to turn a new leaf. And I said, ‘Please, universe, I can’t do this anymore on my own. Please take away my desire for alcohol and take away this pain.’ 

‘And it was like an amazingly spiritual experience where I suddenly no longer had any more desire for alcohol.

‘I got up off my knees. I called AA, I said, ‘I’m an alcoholic. I’m ready to get sober, and I can’t do it on my own. Can you please help me?’

‘I made the choice that it was braver to live sober, so that I could face all of my fears, and just keep going and try and help others who might be suffering from the same disease of alcoholism.’

She said her stage director in a play she was in at age 19 ‘pushed her up against the side of a pool and tried to kiss her.’ She’s seen in the play

She said AA taught her how to ‘love herself’ and ultimately ‘saved her life,’ and now, she’s 28 years sober.

In 2009, Lenore switched her focus to politics – but she admitted that she faced immense criticism after she was elected onto the Nova Scotia House of Assembly.

‘In the very beginning I got a lot of attacks from people who said, ‘What’s an actor know about politics?” she admitted.

‘An actor is very good at being compassionate. We have to put ourselves into the shoes of many other types of people, of all walks of life.

‘We have to imagine what it’s like to be both a successful business person and a single mother of five children living in a trailer park [for example]. It gives us great compassion.’

She said it got so bad that she even received ‘death threats’ and ‘misogynistic attacks.’

‘It really opened up my eyes to just how much misogyny there still is in the world,’ Lenore added. ‘People still seem to feel that men should be the only ones running things. 

‘Sadly, I found that even women were internalizing the misogyny, and oftentimes, they would jump on the bandwagon, and then they would start the attacks as well. 

‘And that made me feel really sad. I think, as women, we really need to look out for each other, and help encourage and inspire each other to do the best and to be the best that we can.’

She said: ‘It was awful. Here I was, 19, a young actress, my first time away from home, way across the other side of the country from my parents.’ She’s seen early on in her career

Lenore (seen in Babyface in 1998) reflected: ‘The pressures on a young actor [are intense]. The pressure to make a living, put food on the table for your family’

But at age 36, she had what she called ‘a moment of awakening.’ She joined AA, which taught her how to ‘love herself’ and ultimately ‘saved her life,’ and now, she’s 28 years sober

Most recently, Lenore has released her own book, entitled A Rogue’s Tale: A Memoir, and is gearing up to star in the new Syfy series Revival.

In the end, Lenore said she hopes that other women look at her journey and feel inspired.

‘I’ve had a full-on career and lots of experiences, both good and bad,’ she reflected.

‘We’re not all cookie cutters. We’re not all made to look exactly the same. Our differences are beautiful, embrace that.

‘And embrace others who may not look just like you, and who have different customs or religions. 

‘Everybody just wants the same thing. They all want to be happy. They want to be safe. 

‘Let’s spread the love. There’s so many different people that are suffering and anxious right now about all kinds of things, and life is short. 

‘So why don’t we try and spread the sugar and the love around to each other, and make this world a better place for all?’