Tragic Details About Hallmark Star Tricia Helfer's Life

Acting is not all glamorous headshots and red carpets. It can be difficult getting into character or bringing a complex story to life, which Hallmark star Tricia Helfer understands. She has starred in many projects in many genres, not just family-friendly romances. For instance, Helfer and Hallmark hunk Paul Campbell first collaborated on the sci-fi "Battlestar Galactica" before their Hallmark collab "Sun, Sand & Romance." In 2019, she starred in an episode of the horror anthology "Creepshow," and she admitted to Pop Break that since a majority of the shooting took place in one singular space (an elevator set), it wasn't the most comfortable gig.

"You just get filthy," Helfer said. "You're sweaty and you're filthy and you're laying on the floor but it adds to it. So you just get used to being in there." Helfer also told the story of a small on-set injury with a railing in the elevator set. "[My co-star's] eyes fly open or something and I go scooting backwards and I whacked my head so hard," Helfer said. "I think it's in the take where you just see me go 'Ugh' and I got massive welts on the back of my head. I mean it can be confining and it can be difficult, but at the same time you just try and channel it and use it because the characters [are] feeling confined."

No matter what her characters go through or what she deals with on set, Helfer has sadly also dealt with real-life tragedies.

Tricia Helfer has dealt with various health issues in her life, and one caused her to have surgery. On Facebook in 2010, she shared a photo of an X-ray of her spine. "Thought I'd post my new back & neck pics taken right after surgery," she wrote in the caption. "Maybe explain why I've been laid up for awhile — I'm now part robot! Four artificial discs." She also gave her doctor a shout-out.

In an interview with The Washington Post four years later, Helfer spoke more about her surgery. "Growing up tall and skinny and being very athletic, having a bit of scoliosis as a kid, a bunch of things together [forced] back surgery in December '09," Helfer said. "That was definitely life-changing. It brought back a renewed sense of youth." She admitted that the two weeks post-surgery were difficult, but two months later she was back to her acting work.

Unfortunately, Helfer dealt with another scary — and quite unexpected — health issue years later.

A common hair product caused Tricia Helfer to get sick. She told People in September 2023 about her experience with heavy metal poisoning from clip-in hair extensions with metal clips. After wearing them for two months in 2018, she noticed negative side effects, such as pain in her scalp and gums and a sunburned-like effect below her eyes. "Just everything was kind of irritated," Helfer said, continuing to say that she had the extensions taken out the following month after a hairdresser on the "S.W.A.T." set told Helfer she had multiple bald spots.

The metal clips were green upon removal, and Helfer still dealt with physical and mental symptoms after they were gone. In 2019, she took a friend's advice to go to his doctor to check for heavy metal poisoning. "The results came back that I had heavy metal poisoning, and the lead was off the charts," Helfer said. Despite the scary news, there was a silver lining. Helfer told the outlet, "It was a definite relief. It's almost like a light bulb moment of like, 'Oh okay, this makes sense. Now I can grasp onto something to fix it as opposed to just feeling a little lost.' I could do the treatments and hopefully not have any kind of permanent damage."

With the right treatment and time, Helfer reversed the effects of the heavy metal poisoning.

The road from professional model to professional actor isn't unusual. For instance, Shemar Moore — who also appeared in two episodes of "Criminal Minds" — is a celebrity who started acting on a soap opera after modeling. Tricia Helfer told Cinemablend in 2009 the hardest thing about the leap from model to actor. "To be honest, to be taken seriously," Helfer said. "Models have a stigma that they can't act." 

She pointed out that they're often stuck in limbo of not being given side parts like "quirky best friend" but also not being given lead parts due to a lack of acting experience. "So it can be really tricky," Helfer added. Her advice was that aspiring models-turned-actors get a team that will help them get auditions for the parts they really want and that they need to speak up for themselves. "You just have to be persistent," Helfer said. "I think that's one of the biggest things about this industry and this career is being persistent and believing in yourself and also being ready when the timing is right. So much of it is about timing and luck, so to be ready when you get the opportunity." 

Helfer spoke more about the struggles of being a model-turned-actor in a 2024 interview on "Off The Beat with Brian Baumgartner." She explained that when she was just starting out, she didn't want her modeling background to be so obvious due to preconceived notions about models being bad actors. "So, I really did downplay it a lot," Helfer said. Although her 5'11" height was initially a detriment to her castability, she was able to break into the industry, shooting to stardom with her "Battlestar Galactica" role.

In January 2018, Tricia Helfer filed for divorce from her husband, a lawyer named Jonathan Marshall, due to irreconcilable differences, per The Blast. They had been married since October 2003, but reportedly separated in May 2017. The Blast reported in May 2019 that the divorce had been settled and their assets — such as bank accounts, cars, and properties — had been split amongst the two of them.

Marshall and Helfer had a prenuptial agreement, and neither of them got any spousal support payments (nor would they ever, according to the terms of the divorce settlement).

It does not seem that Helfer ever made any public comments about her divorce proceedings. However, per Nicki Swift, she took to X, formerly known as Twitter, in 2021 to make it clear that she was not looking to get married again. "I got Happiness. Famous. Married," Helfer said, referring to a game that supposedly tells social media users what their year will be like. "Can I just take the first two?"

As a child, Tricia Helfer dealt with a near tragedy when a falling tree hit her father in the head. Helfer told the story to the The Washington Post during her 2014 interview. It happened when she was 12 years old after a berry-picking excursion.

"We had our buckets full and were walking back to the truck and going down a hillside," Helfer said, explaining that her father was leading the way. Also on the trip with Helfer were her three sisters and her grandmother. "[My grandmother] leaned against a tree to help stabilize herself, and it was a dead tree," Helfer said. "It fell over and perfectly landed on my dad's head 20 feet down. We thought we lost him."

However, he was not unconscious for long. "He came back to and miraculously wasn't hurt except for a sore neck," Helfer said. However, that moment was a learning opportunity for Helfer, and she became aware that things can change suddenly. She told the outlet that her goal was to focus on the current moment more. "I need to listen to my own advice sometimes but try to enjoy being in the present. I don't always do that," she said.