‘Shazam’ Star Zachary Levi Reveals He Had a ‘Full-On Mental Breakdown’

Zachary Levi is opening up about his own journey to improve his mental health – and the bumps in the road along the way. Levi recently released his book Radical Love: Learning to Accept Yourself and Others, which is a memoir with a focus on the tools Levi has developed to improve his “mental and emotional health” over the years. On Monday, he talked about this book in an interview with Ryan Seacrest.

Levi appeared on Seacrest’s radio show, On Air With Ryan, where he said that he went through “a lot of struggles” before deciding to focus proactively on his mental health. He said: “I went through a massive breakdown five years ago and came to the point where I didn’t want to live anymore.” Levi did not go into many more specifics about his own situation, instead focusing on the skills he learned to overcome that “breakdown” and how he believes others can learn them too.

Through therapy and other methods of self-reflection, Levi said that he has “learned so many things” – chiefly that he “didn’t understand what it meant to love” yourself. He continued: “I think we really have to come to the point of radically loving ourselves… We think we do a good job of that, but I don’t think that we do.”

Levi has no well-documented public history of mental illness, but he does have a history of helping others work through their trauma even before the publication of his new book. In 2019, he became an ambassador for the nonprofit organization Active Minds – a group dedicated to promoting proactive mental health practices with a specific focus on suicide prevention.

Levi has also been outspoken about his religion and its impact on his mental health over the years. In a 2002 interview with Relevant Magazine, he indicated that he was a practicing Christian and that his faith was integral to his mental health and his interactions with others. However, in a 2018 interview on Michael Rosenbaum’s podcast, he seemed to have a more generalized view.

“I’m very spiritual, but not particularly religious,” he said at the time. “[Religion] is, in my opinion, very destructive to what I believe the true heart and spirit the essence of who God is.”

Levi’s book Radical Love: Learning to Accept Yourself and Others is available now in print, digital and audiobook formats. Levi will be back in theaters on Dec. 16, 2022 in Shazam! Fury of the Gods.