Gina Rodriguez suffered panic attack in a sushi restaurant

Gina Rodriguez suffered a panic attack at a sushi restaurant as fans tried to take photos of her.

The actress recalls suddenly losing her cool as her hit TV comedy Jane The Virgin took off, and one night she was overwhelmed by all the attention as she was hanging out with friends.

"The anxiety started coming, like, two years into Jane," she tells Cosmopolitan. "I had my first panic attack at a sushi restaurant. All of a sudden, I thought I was going to die, and people are taking pictures. It was horrendous.

"There are a lot of things in the manual of living out your dreams that you don’t know about. Like, you don’t have any more friends. You never go out to eat. You never see your family, your boyfriend, girlfriend, or whatever you have."

All the attention and success made Gina anxious about her body and she has spent years coming to terms with her own version of perfection.

"I finally love my body," she explains. "I let go of the anxiety and the fear of not looking beautiful, because it’s not about the picture; it’s about the fact that I stand on this cover with every Latina who wished she saw herself reflected. Because it’s not my face - it’s the 55-million-plus girls who are like, 'Holy s**t! We belong'."

And fiance Joe LoCicero, who the actress met on the set of Jane The Virgin, has also given her a huge confidence boost - and the belief that she can be in a relationship and still be a strong independent woman.

"Dating Joe was a new experience for me because I put myself first," she adds. "For so long, I put every man in front of me. As a successful woman, it is so hard because of our cultural norms that, like, the man has to be the breadwinner! And the man has to be the more powerful one. It was so difficult for me to find a man who didn’t want me to dim my light for his ego."