Celebs Who Died And Came Back Share Afterlife Stories

Buzz Feed

03-06-2025

There are many cases of people who are clinically dead being brought back to life, and celebrities are no exception. While some individuals choose to keep these incidents private, famous people will often share their stories as a way of coming to terms with it, as well as helping others who have had near-death experiences feel seen...
However, when people glimpse into the afterlife (or lack thereof in some cases), they all seem to see different things and feel various ways about their brushes with mortality. From Jeremy Renner to Elizabeth Taylor, here are 11 celebs who shared their experiences of briefly dying:
Jeremy Renner:
On New Year's Day 2023, Jeremy Renner was critically injured in a snowplow accident on his property in Reno, Nevada. To save his nephew from being crushed by the plow, Renner stepped onto the machine's moving wheel tracks and was subsequently thrown. His injuries included over 30 broken bones, a collapsed lung, a pierced liver, and his left eye being "squeezed out of its orbital socket."While the actor has shared some details about his harrowing recovery, it wasn't until the release of his memoir, My Next Breath, that he revealed that while waiting for an ambulance, he temporarily died: 'After about 30 minutes on the ice, breathing manually for so long, an effort akin to doing 10 or 20 push-ups per minute for half an hour…that's when I died. I could see my lifetime. I could see everything all at once. In death, there was no time, no time at all, yet it was also all time and forever." He described death as an "exhilarating experience," but noted that a "force" told him not to let go of his life.
During a recent interview on Kelly Ripa's podcast, Let's Talk Off Camera, the now-54-year-old elaborated on his afterlife experience: "It's a great relief, is all I can say. It's a wonderful, wonderful relief to be removed from your body. It is the most exhilarating peace you could ever feel." He continued, "You don't see anything but what's in your mind's eye. Like, you're the atoms of who you are, the DNA, your spirit. It's the highest adrenaline rush, but the peace that comes with it, it's magnificent. It's so magical."
Elizabeth Taylor:
In March 1961, while filming Cleopatra, Elizabeth Taylor developed a life-threatening case of pneumonia, which led to her falling into a coma. While suffering from her illness, Taylor had to undergo a tracheotomy. As she explained on The Oprah Winfrey Show in 1992, she "was pronounced dead four times. Once, I didn't breathe, and I had no vitals for five minutes. And that was the time that I had the near-death experience."When Winfrey asked if the experience made Taylor unafraid of death, she replied, 'Oh, absolutely. When I had the out-of-body experience and could see the people working around me, I tried desperately to move an eyelid, a finger, something to let them know that I could hear them." However, her efforts were for naught because the Cat on a Hot Tin Roof star recalled a doctor saying, "Well, I think we've lost her."
That's when Taylor's glimpse into the afterlife occurred: "I was out. I sort of floated into this tunnel, and there were other figures that I recognized. And this welcoming white sun, and warmth. Like being in liquid mercury — being weightless."
Jamie Foxx:
On April 12, 2023, Jamie Foxx's daughter, Corinne, released a statement on Instagram telling fans that her father had faced a "medical complication," but was already on the mend. Fans were left in the dark as to what exactly had happened with the comedian's health until his 2024 standup special, Jamie Foxx: What Happened Was... Foxx revealed the extent of his "medical complication," telling the audience that he suffered a "brain bleed that led to a stroke."'April 11, I was having a bad headache, and I asked my boy for a aspirin. I realized quickly that when you're in a medical emergency, your boys don't know what the f*ck to do,' He continued, "Before I could get the aspirin, I went out. I don't remember 20 days." He explained that his friends took him to a doctor in Atlanta, who gave him a cortisone shot and sent him home. Ultimately, it was his sister, Deidra Dixon, who "knew something was wrong." Foxx explained that Dixon drove him around Atlanta until they came to Piedmont Hospital, adding, "She [Dixon] didn't know anything about Piedmont Hospital, but she had a hunch that some angels [were] in there." The Dreamgirls actor stated that after being informed of his brain bleed, his sister "knelt down outside the operating room and prayed the whole time."
Meanwhile, Foxx was having quite a different experience: "Your life doesn't flash before your face. It was kind of oddly peaceful," he said. "I saw the tunnel. I didn't see the light. I was in that tunnel, though. It was hot in that tunnel. 'Sh*t, am I going to the wrong place in this motherf*cker?' Because I looked at the end of the tunnel, and I thought I saw the devil like, 'Come on.'"
Al Pacino:
While promoting his memoir, Sonny Boy, Al Pacino recalled his experience of "temporarily" dying from COVID. The Scarface star revealed the illness had left him severely dehydrated and that after developing a fever, he was feeling "unusually not good," which led him to ask for help: "I got someone to get me a nurse to hydrate me. I was sitting there in my house, and I was gone. Like that. I didn't have a pulse...My pulse was gone. It was so — you're here, you're not. I thought: Wow, you don't even have your memories. You have nothing. Strange porridge."Unlike others who've had near-death experiences, Pacino saw nothing on the "other side": "I didn't see the white light or anything. There's nothing there. As Hamlet says, 'To be or not to be'; 'The undiscovered country from whose bourn, no traveler returns.' And he says two words: 'no more.' It was no more. You're gone. I'd never thought about it in my life."The now-85-year-old luckily returned to the land of the living: "In a matter of minutes, they were there—the ambulance in front of my house. I had about six paramedics in that living room, and there were two doctors, and they had these outfits on that looked like they were from outer space or something. It was kind of shocking to open your eyes and see that. Everybody was around me, and they said: 'He's back. He's here.'"When asked by People if the experience had changed his outlook on life at all, Pacino simply answered, "Not at all."
Ozzy Osbourne:
In December 2003, Ozzy Osbourne was seriously injured after being involved in an accident while riding a quad-bike at his Buckinghamshire home. The "Crazy Train" singer was rushed to Wexham Park hospital to undergo surgery, with son Jack telling reporters that his father had suffered "a broken collarbone, [and] eight fractured ribs that were pinching crucial blood vessels and a damaged vertebrae in his neck."Osbourne's wife Sharon told the Daily Mirror, "He [Ozzy] had stopped breathing for a minute and a half and there was no pulse. But thank God the security guard was there to revive him. He resuscitated him and got him breathing and his pulse going again." She continued, "He has got such horrendous injuries to his body. His whole body is traumatised. The doctors are hoping there hasn't been any lasting damage but until Ozzy can actually come round and get off the ventilator and talk then will they know."The Osbourne family later learned that Ozzy's medication regimen, which he had been prescribed to cope with Sharon's cancer diagnosis, was partly to blame for the accident.
In a later interview with GQ, Ozzy recounted the events from his perspective: "I had just come back to our house in England and it was a beautiful crisp winter's day I remember getting on the bike. That's the last thing I remember. Apparently I went down in this dip in the field and I lost control of the bike."
Nikki Sixx:
In the 1980s, Mötley Crüe was notorious for their drug usage, and it almost spelled the end for co-founder Nikki Sixx, as he wrote in a 2017 op-ed for the Los Angeles Times, "Heroin nearly killed me. As a matter of fact, it did: For two minutes in 1987 I was pronounced clinically dead from an overdose."On December 23, 1987, after a drug-fueled evening of partying with fellow rock stars from Ratt and Guns N' Roses, Sixx was "shooting up between snorts of cocaine and shots of booze" when he was injected with one last dose of heroin and promptly passed out.However, this overdose wasn't like previous ones (Sixx estimates he has "overdosed about half a dozen times"), because the now-66-year-old turned blue. In his memoir, The Heroin Diaries: A Year in the Life of a Shattered Rock Star, he stated that Slash's then-girlfriend, Sally McLaughlin, desperately tried to perform mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.
Before an ambulance could arrive, Sixx had an out-of-body experience. He recalled, "I tried to sit up to figure out what was going on. I thought it would be hard to lift my body. But to my surprise, I shot upright, as if I weighed nothing. Then it felt as if something very gentle was grabbing my head and pulling me upward. Above me, everything was bright white. I looked down and realized I had left my body. Nikki Sixx—or the filthy, tattooed container that had once held him—was lying covered face-to-toe with a sheet on a gurney being pushed by medics into an ambulance."
Tracy Morgan:
On June 7, 2014, a Walmart truck collided with the back of a 10-seat limousine carrying Tracy Morgan and four other passengers on the New Jersey Turnpike. Morgan's friend and mentor, comedian James McNair, known as Uncle Jimmy Mack, was killed in the crash, while Morgan and the other three passengers suffered severe injuries. In his 2017 special, Staying Alive, the 30 Rock star stated, "I suffered some terrible injuries — traumatic brain injury. I broke every bone in my face, my ribs. I pulverized my femur. I'm from the ghetto, and after I came out the coma I was blind for a week..."Morgan was in a coma for two weeks and claims that during that time, he saw a glimpse of the afterlife: "I went to the other side. This is not something I'm making up. Do you know what God said to me? He said, 'Your room ain't ready. I still got something for you to do.' And here I am, doing an interview with you."
After the comedian awoke, he was in a wheelchair for five months and went to rehab to relearn how to both walk and speak. A year later, he made a triumphant return to SNL as a host.
Burt Reynolds:
In February 1984, on the first day of filming for City Heat, Burt Reynolds' jaw was fractured by a stuntman who accidentally grabbed a metal chair to smash him over the head with instead of the prop chair that had been specifically designed not to injure the Smokey and the Bandit star. Reynolds told TV Guide in 1992, "I broke my jaw and shattered my temporomandibular joint. The pain was worse than a migraine. It is like having an army of people inside your head trying to get out through ears, eyes, your nose. It never stops." He tried many methods to alleviate the pain, even having his bottom teeth removed. However, he eventually turned to Halcion, a sleep aid, admitting that he was taking "up to 50 a day."After realizing that he was addicted, Reynolds attempted to quit cold turkey instead of checking into a rehab center because he noted, "it was very important to me not to be portrayed as a drug addict." However, the shock to his body caused him to lapse into a coma for "eight or nine hours" in a Los Angeles hospital.He remembered doctors telling his then-wife and actor Loni Anderson, "we're losing him" while instructing her to say her final goodbyes. Fortunately, the actor recovered and revealed in his 2015 memoir, But Enough About Me, "I never took another Halcion."
Slash:
Guns N' Roses, like many rockers of the day, were known for their excessive lifestyles. However, this excess momentarily killed guitarist Slash in the early '90s. Slash, born Saul Hudson, had gotten sober from his heroin addiction years prior to the band's Use Your Illusion tour; however, during the tour, he relapsed.When asked about the incident, the guitarist nonchalantly asked, "The one where I died in San Francisco? I remember exactly what happened." He continued, "These drug dealers came to my hotel room at 5am. They had everything, and I took all of it. I started down the hallway, and I ran into a maid, and I asked where the elevator was, and then bam! I collapsed...When you overdose, there's a certain kind of scene where everybody is just moving really quickly and there's noise from radios and everything; I've experienced it a bunch of times..."In an episode of Behind the Music, one of the band's tour managers recalled, "I got a call from management saying, 'Mr. Reese, one of your band members, is passed out in the hallway.' I throw on a pair of jeans and go upstairs, and Slash is dead. Blue dead. He had no pulse."
Once paramedics arrived on the scene, they injected adrenaline straight into the guitarist's heart and ultimately revived him.
Donald Sutherland:
In a 2015 article for Smithsonian magazine, Donald Sutherland recalled briefly dying due to a bout of bacterial meningitis, writing, "In '68 I'd picked up the pneumococcus bacterium in the Danube and for a few seconds it killed me."The M*A*S*H star remembered the beginning of his journey to the afterlife, "Standing behind my right shoulder, I'd watched my comatose body slide peacefully down a blue tunnel. That same blue tunnel the near dead always talk about. Such a tempting journey. So serene. No barking Cerberus to wake me. Everything was going to be all right. And then, just as I was seconds away from succumbing to the seductions of that matte white light glowing purely at what appeared to be the bottom of it, some primal force fiercely grabbed my feet and compelled them to dig my heels in." He continued, "The downward journey slowed and stopped. I'd been on my way to being dead when some memory of the desperate rigor I'd applied to survive all my childhood illnesses pulled me back. Forced me to live. I was alive. I'd come out of the coma. Sick as a dog, but alive."When the incident occurred, Sutherland was in Yugoslavia, shooting Kelly's Heroes, but had to be flown to England because Yugoslavia "had none of the necessary antibiotic drugs." Thanks to a six-week hiatus that was built into his contract for the film, he was able to recuperate at Charing Cross Hospital before returning to set.
Jane Seymour:
In 1988, during filming for Onassis: The Richest Man in the World, Jane Seymour developed pneumonia; however, the ailment wasn't what led to her near-death experience, but rather an antibiotic injection that was placed into her vein instead of muscle, causing her to go into anaphylactic shock.When asked in a 2023 interview with The Times if she believes in life after death, the Dr. Quinn: Medicine Woman star stated, 'I have no idea. I do know that I left my body [after the near-lethal antibiotics]. I did see the white light and I did look down and quite clearly see and hear everyone screaming and trying to resuscitate me, which they were able to do. But when you're out of your body, everything goes very calm."At the end of the day, Seymour noted that she learned a lesson from the experience: "And after that, I realized that you take nothing with you in this life. It was a wonderful moment really; it made me realize how simple it is. It's all about loving and being loved. End of story — and the difference you may have made along the way. It simplified things for me. It stopped me from worrying about dying or death or anything like that. I realized there's no pain or panic attached. Your life is incredibly worth living and I don't want to waste a moment of it."
Do you know of any other celebs who've spoken about their experiences of dying and being revived? Let us know in the comments!
If you or someone you know is struggling with substance abuse, you can call SAMHSA's National Helpline at 1-800-662-HELP (4357) and find more resources here.