Salma Hayek has revealed that she almost died of COVID-19 last year.

The actress, speaking to Variety in a new cover interview, said she contracted the virus during the early stages of the pandemic in 2020 and was “begged” to go to the hospital.

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“My doctor begged me to go to the hospital because it was so bad,” Hayek told the publication, after previously keeping her diagnosis private.

She explained that she then spent seven weeks isolated in a room in her house, and was put on oxygen. Hayek added: “I said: ‘No, thank you. I’d rather die at home.’”

The actress said she was still struggling to regain the energy she had before the virus, but returned to work last month for her role in Ridley Scott’s House of Gucci.

Salma Hayek will next be starring opposite Ryan Reynolds and Samuel L. Jackson in Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard, and will also star in Chloé Zhao’s Marvel movie Eternals.

On her role in the forthcoming superhero film, Hayek told Variety: “It never crossed my mind to be in a Marvel movie. I guess that I thought that boat had sailed, and it was an absolute shock.”

She added: “It’s kind of hard to be an action hero if you’re Mexican. It’s really hard to be an action hero if you’re a Mexican and a woman. But to be an action hero, being Mexican, a woman, and my age, it felt like they were punking me.”

Earlier this year, Hayek opened up about her traumatic experience while shooting a sex scene in Robert Rodriguez’s 1995 film Desperado.