Singer Jason Derulo reflects on breaking neck in near-death gym incident: ‘I heard a crack’

Jason Derulo has reflected on a terrifying gym accident that left him with a broken neck.

Needless to say, his Future History World Tour was cancelled following his injury and the singer was forced to wear a neck brace for the next three months and remained out of action for a total of seven months. 

“He had me doing like 50 back tucks back to back to back, which is another one of the worst ideas somebody’s ever had,” Derulo remembered. 

“So I slipped during one of the back tucks and I landed on my head, breaking my C2 vertebrae.”

“As soon as it happened, I heard a big crack, and I was just like, ‘Holy sh*t, is this it? Is this how it all ends?’” he continued. “And all the thoughts that you could imagine are going through my head at the time. And I remember thinking to myself, ‘Sh*t, my mum is in the car waiting for me outside.’ I didn’t want to scare her.”

He told his mum that he had hurt himself “a little bit”, but she sensed something was not right and took him to the hospital “just to check it out”. 

Good thing she did as doctors told Derulo that he had “a hangman’s break” and had he not sought medical attention, he could have wound up “paralysed or worse”. 

The time away from the spotlight worked in Derulo’s favour and he was able to write his biggest album to date while recuperating. 

“I woke up in the morning, I went to the gym and walked for about 45 minutes every day,” Jason explained of his daily routine at the time. 

“Then, I spent hours and hours in the studio - same time, same places, every day. And that’s when I wrote my most successful album, Talk Dirty. It’s because I created a routine. It’s like a common thing in my life. When I’m able to follow a routine, amazing things happen.”