One Atomweight Champ Angela Lee Reveals 2017 Car Accident Was Suicide Attempt

Angela Lee dealt with untold physical and mental struggles that nearly led to her taking her own life some six years ago.

The One Championship atomweight title holder suffered a concussion and other injuries during a car crash on her way to the gym in November 2017. It was initially reported that the accident occurred because Lee fell asleep while driving, but it turns out that wasn’t the case. In a first-person piece written on The Players Tribune, Lee revealed that she attemped suicide that day.

“It’s taken me a long time to get to this place, but I’ve now reached a point where I am comfortable and confident enough to speak the full truth,” Lee wrote. “Six years ago, I tried to end my life. My car crash in November 2017 was not an accident. It was a suicide attempt.

“For the longest time, I blocked that reality out of my mind in order to ‘protect myself.’ I put up barriers as a defense mechanism, to try and protect my mind and my heart from what had actually happened. And even all these years later, after a lot of healing, it’s still difficult to think about, let alone talk about.”

At the time, Lee was preparing to defend her atomweight belt against Mei Yamaguchi at a One Championship card in Singapore. On the outside, it appeared that everything was going well for Lee, but internally, she was struggling with the pressure of a difficult weight cut ahead of that bout.

“Looking back now, I had everything I could have wanted at the time, but I didn’t realize it. Didn’t fully appreciate it. Because I had gotten to a place where making weight for that fight was the biggest thing in the world to me,” Lee wrote. “I told myself: ‘If you don’t get this done, you’ll lose everything.’

“And, as an athlete, in all honesty, that mentality can be useful and motivating. But it’s also a double-edged sword,” she continued. “And, with me, I got to a point where I had pushed my mind and body too far. I couldn’t stop thinking about the shame that would result if I wasn’t able to make the fight. As someone who had never missed any competition in her entire life, that terrified me. It became all-encompassing. And, ultimately, I got to a point where I would rather take myself out of the equation than deal with what might come. That’s where my head was at. It was all or nothing.”

Lee says that she didn’t feel comfortable sharing those doubts with anyone in her life. One night before the wreck, according to Lee, is when “everything came crashing down.” As she struggled to cut a few additional pounds – she still had 12 pounds total to go -- Lee recalls looking for ways to take herself out of the fight. This included attempting to break her own arm and give herself a concussion. Ultimately, she decided that suicide was the only option.

“I wanted to end whatever it was that I was feeling,” Lee wrote. “Because I felt like that was my only option. I couldn’t see past that moment. I was too scared to speak up and tell people I was struggling. I was too afraid of what my family would think of me, of what the world would think.”

It took two attempts before Lee was able to go through with her plan.

“That second try, I built up more courage, or whatever you want to call it, and I just pressed my foot all the way down on the gas pedal,” Lee wrote. “As far down as it would go. I don’t know how fast I was going. But it was as fast as my car could move. I wanted to hit the guardrail as hard as I could, and I just remember turning the steering wheel and swerving and then hitting something, and then it was just … rolling. Rolling and rolling and rolling.”

Lee ended up surviving the crash, and she admits to having conflicted emotions in the aftermath. As she dealt those feelings, she initially only told her husband what truly happened that night. Over a significant period of time, Lee was able to heal. Gradually sharing her story has been helpful.

“At this point, I’m just trying my best each day, and every day that looks different. But I’m O.K. with that. I realize now that I’m only human, we all are. We aren’t meant to live a perfect, spotless life,” she wrote. I’ve come to learn that this life, it’s life. It’s about growing and learning to accept yourself. Some days are good, some are tough, but each day I choose to keep fighting.

“There are still many tough days. But how I navigate through those days is a lot better now. A lot healthier. I have tools to use and people I can count on to let them know how I’m feeling.”

Lee also revealed that her younger sister, One Championship prospect Victoria Lee, committed suicide on Dec. 26, 2022. The cause of the younger Lee’s death wasn’t initially revealed. Angela Lee started Fightstory, a non-profit organzation dedicated to mental and physical wellness for fighters, in honor of her sister this past March.

“Fightstory was inspired by Victoria and the remarkable life that she lived at just 18 years old,” Lee wrote. “Fightstory is just as much hers as it is mine. It’s something we created together, to save lives and to try and make the world a better place. We want people to know that although you may feel lonely in your fight with mental health, you are not alone.”