“Six years ago, I tried to end my life.”

Then aged 21, Lee was ruled out of a November 2017 title defence against Japan’s Mei Yamaguchi in Singapore, after being left with concussion and minor burns, as well as an injured back, from a car crash in Hawaii just a few weeks out from the fight.

“For the longest time, I blocked that reality out of my mind in order to ‘protect myself’ – I put up barriers as a defence mechanism, to try and protect my mind and my heart from what had actually happened,” she added. “And even all these years later, after a lot of healing, it’s still difficult to think about, let alone talk about.”

Lee had become the youngest female world champion in MMA aged 20 the previous year, before reeling off back-to-back title defences as the face of ONE Championship.

But she said “pressure, stress and expectations all began to build up” – and then she had issues with her weight cut for the Yamaguchi fight.

“In the weeks leading up to the crash, I was convinced that I couldn’t tell anyone what I was feeling, about all the thoughts I was having,” Lee wrote. “I didn’t want to let my family down. So I was going to do everything in my power to make sure that wouldn’t happen. That’s what I told myself.

“Everything came crashing down on November 6, the longest night of my life. That evening, I was trying to drop a few more pounds. I took a hot bath. I was wrapping myself up in towels. That whole thing.

“I went to my room, and I broke down crying. I remember pacing through my room and walking over to the scale. I get on, and look down, and it says that I still have 12 pounds to lose.”

Victoria Lee: the story of ONE’s Prodigy who died at 18

ONE Championship uses a hydration testing system where fighters are supposed to lose weight gradually through dieting rather than dehydrate themselves. The system was implemented after Chinese flyweight Yang Jian Bing died aged 21 in December 2015 from complications following a weight cut.

“At one point, when everyone else in my house was asleep, I went to the bathroom and literally tried to break my own arm. Then I tried to give myself a concussion,” Lee wrote.

“I was trying anything I could think of to escape from the situation I was in and get out of the fight.

“When those things didn’t work, I decided to get in my car and leave it up to fate to see what happens next.

“I wanted to end whatever it was that I was feeling. Because I felt like that was my only option. I couldn’t see past that moment. I was too scared to speak up and tell people I was struggling. I was too afraid of what my family would think of me, of what the world would think.

“I didn’t want to be a disappointment to anyone.”

Lee said she “put the pedal down as fast as it would go” at a spot near her house when a gulch “drops off” the highway.

“I just remember turning the steering wheel and swerving and then hitting something, and then it was just … rolling. Rolling and rolling and rolling.”

Lee said that after her car came to a stop, she waited around in it “for a good bit of time hanging upside down, just basically trying to process everything”.

“To tell you the truth, I didn’t care if I lived or died at that moment. So surviving, trying to live, after all that had happened was extremely difficult.

“What made it even harder was … no one knew what had really happened.”

“Fightstory was inspired by Victoria and the remarkable life that she lived at just 18 years old,” Lee said. “Fightstory is just as much hers as it is mine. It’s something we created together, to save lives and to try and make the world a better place. We want people to know that although you may feel lonely in your fight with mental health, you are not alone.”