09/25/2026
Rita Moreno is a beloved and respected Hollywood icon, a trailblazing Latina performer, and a rare EGOT winner who secured two Emmy Awards, among other recognitions.
Rita Moreno was bleeding for days after a secret illegal abortion arranged by Marlon Brando when she realized the doctor had not completed the procedure.
She could have d*ed.
Months later, she nearly did again.
Rita was one of Hollywood’s brightest young stars.
But behind the premieres and studio photographs, she had spent years trapped in an on-and-off relationship with Brando.
It began in 1954.
Rita was 22.
Brando was already one of Hollywood’s biggest actors.
She fell deeply in love.
The relationship continued for nearly eight years.
He repeatedly cheated.
He married other women.
Rita kept returning.
Then she became pregnant.
Part of her hoped something would finally change.
Maybe Brando would choose her.
He didn’t.
According to Rita, Brando pressured her to have an abortion and arranged a doctor through friends.
Abortion was illegal in most circumstances at the time.
There was no ordinary clinic appointment.
Rita brought cash.
Brando paid the doctor $500.
She was put under.
Then she went home.
But the bleeding did not stop.
Day after day, it continued.
Her roommate eventually told her that something was wrong.
Rita later discovered that the pregnancy had only been “disturbed.”
The procedure had not been properly completed.
Brando took her to a hospital.
Doctors had to finish what the first doctor had failed to do.
Rita later said she did not understand how close the situation had come to costing her life.
Yet she returned to Brando.
That was the part Rita came to hate most.
Not only him.
Herself.
She knew he was unfaithful.
She found another woman’s lingerie at his home.
So Rita tried something different.
Elvis Presley wanted to meet her.
She said yes.
Partly because she wanted Brando to become jealous.
It worked.
Brando became furious.
Rita enjoyed seeing his reaction.
Then she went back to him anyway.
The humiliation kept repeating.
Brando cheated.
Rita left.
Brando returned.
Rita returned.
Eventually, she reached a point where she could no longer stand the woman she saw herself becoming.
One morning, inside Brando’s home, Rita tried to end her life.
She swallowed pills.
Then she went to bed.
Brando’s assistant found her unconscious.
He rushed her to the hospital.
She survived.
Rita later explained what she had wanted to disappear.
Not simply her life.
She wanted the version of herself who kept returning to a man who hurt her to disappear.
Surviving finally helped break the cycle.
She left Brando.
She returned to therapy.
Then something extraordinary happened.
West Side Story reached audiences.
Rita played Anita.
It was the role she had desperately wanted because Anita was different from the stereotyped Latina characters Hollywood kept giving her.
Anita had pride.
Strength.
A voice.
Rita later said Anita represented the woman she herself wanted to become.
Then Hollywood called her name.
In 1962, Rita Moreno won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.
She became the first Latina performer to win an acting Oscar.
The woman who had recently been lying unconscious inside Brando’s house was suddenly standing at the top of Hollywood.
But the Oscar was only the beginning.
Rita later won an Emmy.
Then another Emmy.
A Grammy.
A Tony.
She became one of the rare performers to achieve the EGOT.
Her career continued for more than seven decades.
Yet the awards can hide how close everything came to ending before most of them existed.
Rita Moreno survived an illegal abortion that went dangerously wrong.
She survived an eight-year relationship she said damaged her self-worth.
She survived trying to end her own life.
Then she walked away from Brando.
Months later, America watched her become Anita.
Soon afterward, she held an Oscar.
The woman Rita wanted to erase survived.
She became the woman Hollywood could no longer ignore.
~The Viral Things
