Rebel Wilson’s doctors feared malaria had “demented [her] brain” when she declared she wanted to be an actress.
The 45-year-old star contracted the disease after being bitten "100 times" while travelling in Mozambique, South East Africa, when she was 18 years old, and a vivid hallucination she experienced in hospital caused her to want to forge a new career path away from her planned field of law.
She told The Guardian newspaper: "When I got to Mozambique, I got malaria really badly. We didn’t have time to put up the mosquito nets and I woke up with my face covered in mosquito bites.
"Two weeks later, I was in hospital because it was a really bad strain. I don’t know whether it was the disease or the drugs, but I was hallucinating really badly, and I hallucinated that I won an Academy Award.
"It was so visceral and real that I came out of hospital and said, 'Hey everyone, I think I’m going to become an actor now.'
"The South Africans were like, 'Ah, no, Rebel. The malaria has demented your brain.'
"My parents were pushing me into law school, so I did law by day and acting by night."
In 2021, the Pitch Perfect star won $250,000 for the School of St. Jude - an educational establishment which she sponsors that provides free education to children in Tanzania, East Africa - when she appeared on the US game show Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? and she is very proud of how much of a difference her short appearance was able to make for so many people's lives.
She said: "We had a great cause: the money sponsored a school in Tanzania and helped put 40 kids through college. Some have already graduated.
"The medical students still send me video updates every six months. It’s surreal that going on a gameshow for half an hour resulted in putting 40 kids through college in Africa.
"My heart rate was pumping because I wanted to win as much money for charity as I could. You think, 'Oh my God, please don’t be an idiot.'
"I play a lot of dumb, stupid characters, but in real life, I do have two degrees – in theatre and performance studies, and law."
As well as revealing she "could have died" from her malaria ordeal in Mozambique, Rebel - who has two-year-old daughter Royce with wife Ramona Agruma - said last year that she has always had "Bugs-xiety" and hates being around creepy crawlies.
She told UsWeekly magazine: "I have always had Bugs-xiety … [since] growing up in Australia, where we have a lot of bugs ...
"I also remember being in my mom’s house, and they’d always have little flying gnats around the fruit bowl and I always hated it. I don’t want any little bugs crawling around at home, especially after having a baby.”
