Cesar Millan, whose reign as TV’s “Dog Whisperer” ended last summer, tried to commit suicide in May 2010 — a desperate call for help that left him unconscious and hospitalized.
In “Cesar Millan: The Real Story” — a documentary which airs Nov. 25 on Nat Geo Wild — he talks publicly for the first time about the overdose that almost took his life.
“It’s rare when someone with his level of celebrity is willing to completely open up and share the struggle and hardship it took to find success and happiness,” said Geoff Daniels, executive vice president of the channel.
“Cesar doesn’t hold anything back.”
In 2010, things took a tumble for Millan: his go-to pit bull, Daddy, died in February; a month later, he learned his wife of 16 years planned to divorce him; in May, he attempted suicide.
“I felt defeated, a big sense of guilt and failure . . . I was at the lowest level I had ever been emotionally and psychologically,” he wrote in June on his Web site without mentioning his overdose.
He rejected antidepressants, choosing instead to come back through exercise, discipline and affection, he told The Associated Press.
Another pit bull has taken Daddy’s duties, though Junior will never take his place.
“Daddy was my Tibet, my Himalaya, my Buddha, my source of calmness,” Millan said.
A new love in his life also helped, one whom Millan calls “the one.”
Jahira Dar lives with Milan and his youngest son in LA, and Millan said he planned to propose soon.
Besides meeting Dar, constant work also helped him turn it around, said Millan, who described himself as a workaholic who seldom cracks a smile.
He runs a rehab complex, the Dog Psychology Center, at a ranch in California, a magazine and a philanthropic foundation, and sells his own line of dog products and instructional CDs and DVDs.
His seventh book, “A Short Guide to a Happy Dog,” is due out Jan. 1, and Nat Geo Wild will premiere a new show, “Leader of the Pack.”
The new series, which was filmed in Spain, aims to increase pet rescue and rehabilitation around the world. It will feature his training philosophy, a belief that every dog knows its place and follows rules set by the pack leader – in this case, a human such as an owner or a trainer.