Jeff Bridges reflects on fight against cancer and COVID-19
"I was just really at death's door a couple of times there."
Jeff Bridges is reflecting on his recent health battles with cancer and COVID-19.
The "Crazy Heart" actor, 72, announced in 2020 that he'd been diagnosed with lymphoma. In March 2021, while undergoing chemotherapy treatments, he contracted COVID-19.
"The chemo wipes out your immune system and when COVID hit me, I had nothing to fight it," Bridges, now in remission, told E! News. "I was just really at death's door a couple of times there."
"I remember the doctors saying to me, 'Jeff, you gotta fight,'" he recalled, saying he thought he was "in surrender mode" but was able to change his mindset thanks to his medical team, trainers and family who "brought me back."
Bridges shared in September 2021 that he was in remission.
Having survived both cancer and COVID-19, he said he is prioritizing his wife Susan, whom he married in 1977 and calls "the love of my life," as well as their three daughters and their three grandchildren.
"So often things are right on our nose that we don't appreciate," Bridges said. "But it turns out there are many positive sides in my life that came out of that experience."