Rebel Wilson recalls near-death experience after waking up with 100 mosquito bites

Rebel Wilson recalled her brush with death when she woke up in Africa with a hundred mosquito bites on her face. 

In a recent interview with Us Weekly, the Perfect Pitch star opened up about her fear of insects following her near-death experience.

“I have always had bugs-xiety … [since] growing up in Australia, where we have a lot of bugs,” the Australian actress said. 

“But also, one of the biggest turning points, when I was 18, I got malaria. I woke up one morning in an African bush and I had like 100 mosquito bites on my face. I was in hospital for two weeks. I could have died from it, it was very, very bad,” she added.

According to the World Health Organization, malaria is a "life-threatening disease caused by parasites that are transmitted to people through the bites of infected female Anopheles mosquitoes." It can be prevented and cured.

Wilson, now 44, said she's been working on a charitable program in Mozambique, Africa where she experienced it while she was in high school at 19 years old.

Because of her traumatic experience, she said she hasn't been able to tolerate any kind of insect to this day.

“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,” she said. 

During an apperarance on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, Wilson revealed how contracting malaria changed her life forever. "I'm in the hospital hallucinating, and I lost my hearing because of the drugs that they gave me, and I'm hallucinating that I'm an actress and that I was really great and I won an Academy Award," she said. "It was so full blown that I came out of the hospital and I said, 'I'm going to become an actress.'''