Some saw a light, others felt peace, and a few even sensed the heat of hell among the stars who’ve had near-death experiences. Whatever they went through, most say it changed their outlook on life forever. Here are the stories of 7 such celebrities.
Elizabeth Taylor
In 1961, during the filming of Cleopatra, Elizabeth Taylor caught severe pneumonia and slipped into a coma. She had to be resuscitated multiple times, once showing no signs of life for five minutes.
On The Oprah Winfrey Show, she once shared: “I was floating outside my body, watching the doctors work on me. I tried to move, to let them know I could hear them… but I couldn’t.”
She then entered a tunnel she described as feeling like floating in liquid mercury. There, she met her late love, film producer Mike Todd, who told her, “You can’t come with me; your time hasn’t come yet.”
It was decades before she spoke about it: “I knew it happened. Since then, I’ve felt I’m not alone in this.”
Jeremy Renner
The Marvel star suffered a severe snowplow accident on New Year’s Eve 2023 while trying to save his nephew. Over 30 bones were broken, one lung collapsed, a bone pierced his liver, and his left eye was seriously injured.
In his memoir, My Next Breath, he wrote: “I lay on the ice for about half an hour, trying to breathe… then I died. I saw my whole life. There was no time in death, yet eternity was there.”
On a podcast, he described it as: “A liberating feeling. Like my DNA, my spirit, was freed from my body. There was incredible peace.” But when he was brought back, he was angry: “Pfff! Why did you bring me back?” The accident completely reshaped his approach to life.
Jamie Foxx
In spring 2023, Jamie Foxx suffered a stroke, lost consciousness, and was in a coma for over 20 days.
He later shared: “I saw the tunnel, but there was no light. Just heat… I thought, ‘Oh my God, am I going the wrong way?’ And it felt like the devil was waiting for me at the end.”
His sister Deidra saved his life and took him to the hospital. When he woke up, he was in a wheelchair and recovered slowly. Afterward, he said: “I reevaluated my life and creativity. I won’t let anyone take my art or make me give up. Life’s too short.”
Al Pacino
The star of The Godfather and Scarface, Al Pacino, recently revealed a shocking near-death experience in his memoir Sonny Boy: he was close to death due to COVID complications. He battled extreme dehydration, fever, and severe illness.
“I was at home, called a nurse for an IV. I sat there and… it was over. Just like that. No pulse. Nothing. Here one moment – gone the next. And nothing in between. No memories.”
While many talk about peace, light, or tunnels, he saw none of these: “No white light, no tunnel. Nothing. As Hamlet says: ‘The undiscovered country, from whose bourn no traveler returns.’ And in two words: no more. That’s it. You vanish. I never thought about this before, but now I know.”
Fortunately, help arrived just in time: “Within minutes, the ambulance was at my door. Six paramedics were in my living room with two doctors dressed like they stepped out of a sci-fi movie. When I opened my eyes, I heard: ‘He’s back. He’s here.’”
Despite the emotional experience, when asked by People magazine if it changed his outlook on life, Pacino simply said: “Not at all.”
Slash
The Guns N' Roses guitarist Slash went clinically dead in the early ’90s due to a drug overdose. Though he had quit heroin before, he relapsed during the Use Your Illusion tour. One early morning in a San Francisco hotel room, he took everything offered and soon collapsed in the hallway.
“I asked where the elevator was, then bam! I collapsed,” he later recalled. His tour manager said he was blue and had no pulse. Paramedics injected adrenaline directly into his heart, saving his life.
Slash didn’t see an afterlife, but the experience left a deep mark: “The feeling – the lights, sounds, chaos – burned into me forever.” Since 2006, he’s been completely clean: “I fully committed to rehab. I’ve been sober ever since.”
Donald Sutherland
In 1968, Donald Sutherland nearly died from bacterial meningitis. He caught the infection along the Danube and briefly “crossed over to the other side.”
“I saw my comatose body sliding down a blue tunnel – the kind everyone talks about. It was calming, tempting. Then an overwhelming urge pulled me back. I stopped. I lived.”
At the time, Sutherland was filming Kelly’s Heroes in Yugoslavia but was immediately flown to England due to lack of proper medicine locally. Luckily, he recovered and was able to return to filming thanks to a six-week break in his contract.
Jane Seymour
Last but not least, Jane Seymour’s story is incredible. In 1988, during filming, she faced a life-threatening situation—not from pneumonia she had, but from a wrongly administered antibiotic. The injection was mistakenly given into a vein instead of muscle, causing anaphylactic shock and putting her close to cardiac arrest.
“I left my body. I saw the white light and clearly heard everyone panicking around me, trying to revive me,” she later recounted.
The Dr. Quinn star says the experience brought a powerful lesson: “I realized we take nothing from this life except love – what you gave and received. That’s it. I’m no longer afraid of death. Life is too precious to waste a single moment.”
