Jeremy Renner isn’t sugarcoating anything about his near-death experience after a snowplough accident, and honestly, it’s one of the rawest things he’s ever shared.
The Hawkeye star got brutally honest on Kelly Ripa’s Let’s Talk podcast, reflecting on what it felt like to die, yes, actually die, after his snowplough accident in January 2023. Renner, now 54, broke 38 bones, had a collapsed lung, and a torn-up liver after getting crushed by his snowcat. And while most would be clinging to life, Renner said he felt something else entirely: magical peace.
“It’s a great relief is all I can say,” he told Kelly. “It’s a wonderful, wonderful relief to be removed from your body.” Renner described the moment like it was the most beautiful high imaginable, calling it “the highest adrenaline rush” but with a kind of calm that most of us probably can’t even comprehend. “The peace that comes with it, it’s magnificent. It’s so magical,” he added.
But here’s the twist, he didn’t want to come back. He said he was downright pissed when he was resuscitated. “I didn’t want to come back,” Renner admitted. “I remember, and I was brought back, and I was so p***** off. I came back, I’m like, ‘Aww!’” Yeah, apparently even superheroes can get grumpy about being dragged out of the afterlife.
That moment didn’t last long, but it left an impression. “I saw the eyeball again, I’m like, ‘Oh, s***, I’m back.’ Saw my legs. I’m like, ‘Yeah, that’s gonna hurt later.’ I’m like, ‘All right, let me continue to breathe.’”
Renner also talked about how his sense of time completely disappeared while he was out. Time, he said, just didn’t matter anymore. “You don’t need to [talk to anyone],” he explained. “That’s a human experience. Time is a human construct. It’s useless. It’s not linear. It’s not how it exists.”
And the way he sees life now? Totally different. “This is so remedial,” he said, referring to being alive. “Language, all these things and blah, blah, blah… It’s all knowing, all experiencing, all at the same time, all at once.”
Since that brush with death, Renner’s entire outlook on life has shifted. The accident, he said, was “a great confirmation” of what actually matters. “It makes me, a man that didn’t want to come back, really be able to be back here and live it on my terms as the captain of my own ship,” he said. “And get on it or off it, I don’t give a f***.”
He’s over the noise. He’s over the BS. “The white noise is ripped away,” he said. Renner admitted that he used to put value into all the wrong things. “I gave so much value to things that have zero value,” he said. These days, he doesn’t care about stocks, bonds, crypto, or any of the usual success markers. “I invest into love and my shared relationships that I experience love with. ’Cause that is the only thing that you take with you.”
It’s clear Jeremy Renner’s snowplough accident didn’t just leave him physically broken, it cracked him open in the best possible way. That sense of magical peace, the frustration of being brought back, and the clarity he’s found since are all a reminder that sometimes it takes losing everything to figure out what really matters. And for Renner, life now comes with a lot less noise and a lot more meaning.
Jamie Wells has a knack for getting the inside scoop on Hollywood’s biggest stars and up-and-coming talent. With a sharp eye for industry trends and an ear for viral moments, Jamie covers everything from red-carpet events to behind-the-scenes drama in movies, TV, and celebrity culture.
