LOS ANGELES - Actress Mischa Barton threatened to kill herself during a meltdown last month (Jan 2017) that saw worried neighbours call 911, according to TMZ, which gained access to recordings of two calls made to the emergency services.

Neighbours reported that Barton was "off the rails, leaning over her fence and vowing to end her life", said the celebrity gossip site.

"My downstairs neighbour is hysterically crying in the backyard and says she's going to kill herself," says a female neighbour in one 911 tape.

"She's screaming and she just keeps on saying 'I want to die' and then she's like 'I'm going to kill myself' and then she just keeps on, yeah, it's all nonsensical. But I'm very concerned."

The woman then adds: "They've been called there a bunch. They go see her at least every couple of months because she loses it."

A man who calls says: "I have a neighbour who's on her back patio just screaming."

He later says: "She's saying that it's all over, that everything is done and then just wailing. I mean, she's hanging half over her back fence right now."

Following the incident, Barton, 31, claimed that she had been given the date-rape drug GHB, which led to her being hospitalised after paramedics arrived on the scene, said the Daily Mail. The actress shot to fame playing Marissa Cooper in the Fox TV teen drama The OC.

In previously released footage of the meltdown, which appears to have been filmed by a neighbour, Barton can be seen ranting and raving while hanging over a fence in her backyard. The actress, wearing a white T-shirt, can be heard wailing as she rocks back and forth.

"Ah, planet earth. Um, bye," says Barton. "Like, like anybody. Oh my God, it's over. I feel it. And it's angry."

She later says: "Oh my god, and my mother. I always knew it. Oh you f***** witch. I knew it. What a witch. I was right, I was right."

WARNING: STRONG LANGUAGE

She then breaks down in tears and begins to wail again.

It is then that she starts to say: "We're dying, we're dying. I knew it, I knew it. I don't want anybody to know. Oh my god, it's terrifying.

"Whoaaaaaaa, you're angry. Oh, I feel you. Oh, I'll be your conduit. Yeah. Yeah. F*** yeah. F*** yeah. F*** yeah you Ziggy Stardust, I always knew it. I always f***ing knew it."

Barton then falls off the balcony and back onto her patio, but quickly gets back up.

According to TMZ, Barton was placed on an involuntary psychiatric hold back in 2009.