Troubled actress Mischa Barton sat back on The View’s couch this morning to promote her new CW show The Beautiful Life and (of course) answer any and all questions concerning her hospital stay this summer. Barton was forcibly removed from her Los Angeles home in July and taken to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center’s psychiatric ward.
Barton at first tried to play off her hospital stay saying it was “silly” and “blown out of proportion” but when Barbara Walters pointed out that she was actually in a rubber room and not just your normal hospital ward, Barton again blamed her teeth.
“I had an infection and a dry socket and I woke up on a Sunday morning and there was no doctor available,” Barton continues. “I was trying to take the minimum amount of pain killers and get through it because I had to go to work soon and I was getting ready to go do this show, ‘The Beautiful Life,’ and meanwhile I still had a schedule to travel. I was going to Europe. I was going to London. I had things to do and I was prepping to do photo shoots and I was just overwhelmed. I had so much work to do and the surgery had gone so badly for me. And I think that I was just starting to feel completely overwhelmed. It was just too much to have this surgery go so wrong.”
[ABC News]
Barton, although seemingly a little malaised, appeared to be in her right mind, and spoke calmly about the dramatic incident. The former star of The O.C. explained that she had “a meltdown” and that because she mentioned that she “wanted to die” because of the pain, they took her very seriously. Hence the 5150 hold. The wish for death is understandable. I’ve had dry sockets and they’re no joke. But she must have been FLAILING and seriously flipping out for them to lock her up.
Walters (who is showing her advanced age, I could barely make out the question) also asked her how she got through it.
“I just figure that if you hit rock bottom like that … and you’re around people, you know, you realize I’m nothing like these people,” she says. “I have a career, I worked so hard for it. I’m such a positive person and I really … I think you can overcome anything and for me having that kind of chronic pain for the first time in my life, like being in serious pain was such a wakeup call because, you know, I’ve seen friends go though terrible, terrible pain and I’ve worked in hospitals and never experienced it myself. And I have such a newfound respect for people who live with that kind of pain and I think it was just a wakeup call for me about life and respecting life so much more.”
“Anyway, I got really healthy since then,” Barton adds. “I’ve just been doing everything I can to keep my job happy and healthy and I’ve moved to New York with my two dogs and I have a great apartment I just got.”
Barton, who has long been rumored to be a party girl in excess (remember the freakout at Nicole Richie’s 2007 Memorial Day BBQ and her drunk driving arrest?), seems to be taking this incident as a wake up call. Hopefully this is a sign that she’s getting it together, focusing on her career, and not having dental surgery again anytime soon.
Mischa is shown out in NY with her dog on 8/31 (graphic print shirt. Credit: WENN.com) and 8/17 (purple shirt Credit: Fame Pictures)
That’s like blaming a murder spree on a plantar wart.
Had all four of my wisdom cut out at the same time, went to the grocery store afterwards with the person who drove me (yep, even walked around with all that bloody gauze hanging out of my mouth) and developed the dry socket about a week after the surgery. I was at work that morning when it finally burst, popped into the dentist on my half hour lunch break, they pushed on it and got the rest of the blood out. Went back to work afterwards.
Blaming that on the 5150 is a pitiful excuse…or she is just EXTREMELY wimpy!
If the cops were there and she said she wanted to die or something like that they will take you into custody. My bf used to work at mental hospital, and he saw one of our old neighbors there. She got into a fight with her gf and told the cops she wanted to kill herself so they carted her off… it was actually pretty funny. 🙂
I’m having a really hard time mustering up any sympathy for her…
“I was trying to take the minimum amount of pain killers …”
Uh huh. This bitch probably needs to swallow a handful of Vicodin before she can string two thoughts together on a good day.
I don’t understand why wisdom tooth surgery differs so much from person to person. True some people’s teeth haven’t come down yet, some are in and bent weird, but still–I had anesthesia-was out like a light for an hour, kept up with my meds and felt no pain.
I wasn’t addicted to drugs before my surgery though.
Seriously-that’s hilarious! She still must be dilusional if she thinks we buy that. If it was a comment in passing like that than why was she in there so long?? She is FOS!
Meh.. I was ready to call bullshit, but I actually kind of tend to believe her(and I don’t even like her).
For one thing, she doesn’t appear to be crazy or heavily on drugs. She’s very calm and I don’t get the impression that she’s lying. She even does a bit to promote her new show like a (GASP) professional “actress”.
Also, she mentioned that she’s terrified of needles. So am I, and I know if I were very stressed and in a lot of pain and someone would come at me with a NEEDLE, I would totally freak out.
The last time I had to go to draw blood was a disaster. I was so scared, everytime they came at me with that needle I pulled away, which was quite dangerous. At a certain point I just jumped up and wanted to run out of the room because in a fit of paranoia I thought the nurse calling someone to hold me down. Then I realized people were looking at me like I was Crazy Girl and the embarrasment actually calmed me down…
What’s a dry socket? Never mind, will check google.
Jeane, she is an actress so can come across as believable when she is just re-telling the fictional story her pr people have concocted to disguise her drug abuse related meltdown.
Saying that, good luck to her and hope she manages to sort herself out and stay happy and clean
The more Misha blames her teeth the sillier the excuse sounds. I can buy that she was taken into custody because she said she wanted to die because of the pain. But she was hospitalized for 3 or 4 days. You are not there that long for an empty threat outburst.
Ruby, she’s not that good of an actress…
Whatever really happened, in this interview she seems healthy and normal, when I expected her to be more of a Lindsay/Britney/Amy kind of mess.
my mom doesn’n like narotics. she got her wisom teeths removed without getting a shot of narcotics (unlike me). the assistant of the dentist came out to my father and she was so shocked that my mother did that (and my mother is not that type…she’s very fragile).
i think…some people can deal with pain…some people just can’t deal with it. maybe her story is true and it hurted very much…but i don’t think that under circumstances like these…you get into a 5150 hold. but i don’t know.
i felt sorry for her…until i read this sentence of her interview:
“I just figure that if you hit rock bottom like that … and you’re around people, you know, you realize I’m nothing like these people,…”
that’s just mean of her to say out loud or even think, don’t you agree?
I have to say I had a very negative experience with my own wisdom teeth, they had me on vicodin for the very severe pain because morphine makes me throw up, when I went off it cold turkey (stupid but I was young and dentists don’t really tell you how to handle the hard meds they are prescribing)even after the short amount of time, I totally wigged out, had a mini breakdown, dropped out of college all within a 24 hr meltdown. By the next day I was fine and it only dawned on me what had happened. It was truly a moment of insanity, I was crying uncontrollably and felt not lucid at all. I can only imagine how much Mischa was medicatted by Hollywood “doctors”, I’m not saying she didn’t have issues to start with but wisdom teeth gone wrong can really mess you up!
What’s all this talk about “blame.” She is not a criminal. She didn’t do anything wrong. She said her medical condition contributed to her being overwhelmed and some prescription drugs can make some people react in strange ways. She’s not trying to get out of a murder wrap!
gatsby gal: r u jealous? whatever happened she’s a human being in severe personal distress, why would you be hostile
meg b is right. she’s not trying to beat a murder rap.
My brother ended up in the ICU after he got his wisdom teeth out – abscess. It an be a serious deal.
screw her — “I’m not like these people…” nice disrespect for people who have mental illnesses, biatch.
Jack – why does a person have to be “jealous” just because they don’t believe her story? That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.
All this says to me is that she’s still using or plans to keep using.
The “blameless” use of drugs is glaring indicator.
it is obvious she was in for mental & drug reasons, I think it was in poor judgement for Barbara to press on the subject, everyone knew shew was full of BS with the wisdom teeth story, she is mentally fragile, I think she really should not be doing interviews on shows at this point, not a good idea.
It’s up there with “mercury poisoning” for originality.
As far as her being “mentally fragile,” I see overwhelmed women screaming at and hitting their kids in the supermarket everyday that I’d describe that way and I’m sure a lot of them are on drugs (Prozac, Valium, too much alchohol, ect) too. Everyone gets stressed. At least she didn’t hurt anyone.
Sounds like a bad case of the denials to me. Had my four impacted wisdom teeth pulled out on two separate occasions, and I’ve developed dry socket not once, but twice. Yes, it hurts (both times managed to knock the clot out on Friday afternoon). It’s very similar to breaking a tooth and not realizing it, only to develop an infection which requires a root canal (yay for TMJ!). It’s extremely sensitive to hot/cold, to the point of radiating severe pain throughout your head and neck, and makes it very uncomfortable to eat for a couple of days (considering Ms. Barton’s drastic diets in the past, this can’t be too much trouble for her). I’m no pain wuss, but it reduced me to tears.
That’s when you pull out the Oxycontin to get you through the weekend and get someone to take care of you/make you jello for the next few days. I can’t believe that an actress would not have the retainers to make sure she was doing well enough.
Either she’s very spoiled to think that she doesn’t deserve to feel pain, or she’s lying. My guess? It was a combination of having overdosed on whatever opiate she was prescribed and/or used up her allotment before the dry clot appeared (it’s most likely to happen between day 1-5, but can happen up to a week after you have the surgery; this is why they tell you not to use straws/eat solid food until after day 5, and to use the oxycontin sparingly through supplementing it with prescription strength ibruprofin). And if that’s the case, then good for the hospital for calling her for what she is. Not buying it, and the girl really needs to make an appointment for one of the many ‘celebrity’ rehabs.
Yeah, totally over her. She’s trying to save face for her career- was probably read an ultimatum- but didn’t people notice that she’s got a case of the meth-face already?
meh different people react to pain and drugs differently. besides she’s a celebrity so if she said she “wanted to die” they would probably haul her off to some mental facility just to be safe. i think the drugs+ pain is what did it. don’t see why this is such a huge deal to some anyways, she didn’t rob or kill anyone.
No sympathy for her. I had all four of my wisdom teeth out at the same time. I was awake. I had to take a train, then walk a mile and a half to my appointment, then walk back to the train after having them taken out. I’m sure a dry socket sucks, but blaming the 5150 on her teeth is ridiculous.
And “rock bottom”?? If that’s rock bottom for her, she needs a real wake-up call.
O please. She sounds exactly like every hard drug addict ive ever had a conversation with – complete BULLSHIT said with a straight face and a calm temper. What a waste.
I can’t believe how American TV hostesses are. They immediately get right into it, “you were hospitalised.” Now I remember why I’ve stopped watching The View.
When opiate addicts (oxy, vicodin, heroin, etc.) go into withdrawal, any pain (such as toothache) may be magnified 10X what a normal person would feel. Just sayin’.
She acts like a self-centered spoiled brat. She is saying she thinks she is better than the people in the mental ward. What makes her any better than them because her parents are millionares and that is the only reason she gets acting jobs. Plus to say that she hit rock bottom from getting her teeth pulled. What a joke! She is an overweight spoiled whiney “want to be” actress.
I’m not a fan of hers, but I interpreted some of her comments differently from some of you.
The whole ‘I’m not like these people’ meant (at least, to me) that she was finally getting some perspective. She has all sorts of resources and opportunities that a lot of her fellow patients don’t. She’s got a home, a job, money (presumably), and (likely) a support system in friends and or family. If they’re not acting up to snuff, there are a whole list of things that–if she so chose–could get her back on track. Therapy, support groups, rehab–you see my point.
She’s not ‘like’ them, because she’s never had to sleep on a park bench or worry where her next meal (BIG hypothetically)will come from, she’s not walking around with an undiagnosed disorder, chronic pain, or ongoing breaks with lucidity, etc. That she has all of these things and more, and yet would so cavalierly toss it away is a marker of immaturity, so maybe the events of the last summer were an education.
Jeane, she is a good enough actress to lie convincingly – most of the population can do this.
She has had serious drug addictions in the past, so I hardly think she is clean and not using all of a sudden, especially being involved in celeb lala land and all that goes with it
agreed with jack
gatsby gal, you didn’t say you didn’t believe her story. you said you have no sympathy.
as meg said, she didn’t kill or harm anyone but herself. she didn’t even get in her car and drive like many do, but was responsible and called authorities for help.
nothing she did deserves such hostility. you are jealous. or, you’re a sociopath.
she was obviously suicidal and she’s clearly humiliated as anyone would be when their most vulnerable pained moments are exposed for all. how anyone could feel hostility towards another human being in this condition is scary. again, jealousy or sociopath.
your insulting jack instead of explaining your position shows he hit the truth.
you need a trip to Oz for a heart and a brain. meanwhile, hope you get more kindness than you dish out when you hit rock bottom which sounds inevitable for you.
dumb comment Danny.
Haha, couldn’t have said it better myself, Bros. Too many people on this site taking things way too seriously.
@Gatsby Gal: people often say this in a flippant way, but you really do need professional mental help.
Ha ha. Because suicide is such a funny subject, gatsby girl…. Meanwhile, you’re constatnly hyperventilating and raving over nonsense ….
Why does GatsbyGal get piled on when others posting have said equally negative things. She has a right not to like Ms Barton and she has a right to say so. I don’t have any sympathy for Mischa either. Could she be telling the truth, yes. Do I buy her explanation, no! I think she’s an addict, pure and simple. However, I don’t wish ill on her and I hope she keeps her shit together from now on.
Reading through site, Gatsby one of those personalities that picks fights then acts like victim when called on her s-it. She initiates attacks on everyone over silly things, or if she doesn’t agree with them. But when she gets taste of own medicine she acts like victim and goes more bananas and aggressive. Many comments mean and hateful. She makes site not fun and tedious.
I don’t really buy her story. It’s been common knowledge that she’s had big drug problems in the past and certainly hasn’t seemed any better at any point.
I can maybe understand the police bringing someone to the hospital if they’re screaming they want to die from pain. But if she were in that much pain from wisdom teeth, the hospital would have managed her pain or even admitted her and it would have been pretty clear that’s what the problem is. I can’t imagine anyone, even a celeb, being on involuntarily psych hold for 3-4 days simply for the reasons she gave. There’s a lot more too it, but she’s not required to tell anyone her private medical business. She should not being doing publicity right now.