Ruby Rose Falsely Accused of Child Murder as Teen After Playground Accident

Ruby Rose was at the center of a police investigation more than 10 years before her breakout role on Orange Is the New Black. 

The actress recalled facing “baby killer” accusations as a 15-year-old in her native Australia, where she and a childhood friend were smoking their first cigarette when they stumbled upon a badly injured boy on a playground. 

“I saw something on play equipment. I went, ‘Oh!’ I thought it was a doll hanging,” she recounted on the Sept. 19 episode of Kaitlyn Bristowe‘s Off the Vine podcast. “As we got close enough, we could tell this was a real baby human—like a 4½-year-old. There was blood coming out of his ears, nose and mouth. It was very traumatic.”

Rose, now 40, and her friend immediately sought help, with the Batwoman alum picking up the boy and rushing him to a group of adults at a nearby house. 

“I thought I’d saved his life because there was a big deep breath,” Rose continued, explaining how CPR was performed as an ambulance was called to the home. “And I was like, ‘Oh my god. Thank goodness.'”

While Rose initially thought the boy was going to recover, she later learned that his condition deteriorated and he ultimately died at the hospital because he “was brain dead for so long.”