Actor Scott Eastwood has opened up about his late girlfriend’s freak fatal car accident.
The Regretting You star addressed the 2014 tragedy, which he says was caused in part by a faulty airbag, on the Armchair Experts podcast.
“We were together for three or four years,” he said, referring to Jewel Brangman. “They had a recall on the airbag and what would have been a fender bender that probably most people would survive… she was essentially shot by the airbag.”
Eastwood said he was forced to compartmentalize Brangman’s death to continue shooting a project he was on at the time.
“Being on a film set when someone passes, or something happens, it’s really tough because you don’t have time to grieve,” Eastwood continued. “The show must go on.”
He added, “You can’t fly home. You’re stuck. You’ve got to work.”
Eastwood, now 40, recalled “blacking out” the incident and missing her funeral. He was 28 at the time.
“I did a classic defense mechanism—just compartmentalize that until later,” he said. “Brutal having to deal with that and not being able to go through it. I grieved later.”
Eastwood also suffered the loss of his friend and fellow actor Paul Walker in 2013 while on set for a film.
“That’s not a great thing. You do want to grieve with the people that are around that you know and were part of their lives as well,” he said. “That’s an important part of the grieving process.”
Brangman was a model and actress. She was 26 at the time of the crash.
Eastwood said the loss of Brangman affected his future dating.
“I’ve never told anybody that,” he said.
The California-born actor and model made his debut in 2006 in the film Flags of Our Fathers and has since been featured in hit films such as The Fate of the Furious and Suicide Squad.
