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Leonardo DiCaprio attends the premiere of the film "Gardener of Eden" during the Tribeca Film Festival in New York April 26, 2007.
Leonardo DiCaprio attends the premiere of the film “Gardener of Eden” during the Tribeca Film Festival in New York April 26, 2007.
Tony Hicks, Pop culture writer for the Bay Area News Group is photographed for a Wordpress profile in Walnut Creek, Calif., on Thursday, July 28, 2016. (Anda Chu/Bay Area News Group)
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Leonardo DiCaprio said he almost got eaten by a shark.

Maybe it just wanted an autograph.

“I had a huge fear of sharks, and when I did ‘Blood Diamond’ in 2006, I actually got stuck in a cage with a great white, which was awesome,” the 39-year-old actor said Tuesday on The Ellen DeGeneres Show.

“It was a gigantic great white … They actually said in 30 years this has never happened, but the tuna kind of got stuck on the top of the cage and the great white leapt out and tried to bite it and went into the cage with me.

“Half of its body was in and out, and I flattened down at the bottom, and it was this far away, and it chomped a few times but I survived it.”

Actors are so dramatic … it was probably a carp.

At the time, DiCaprio was a guest of a group devoted to protecting sharks, according to People.com. He said looking back, he’s happy that he didn’t almost die just on a lark.

“I don’t want to do that anymore,” he said, “but I don’t want to discount their work because they’re doing great stuff. But it was absolutely terrifying.”

Contact Tony Hicks at Facebook.com/BayAreaNewsGroup.TonyHicks or Twitter.com/insertfoot.