It's hard to imagine a world without The Dude, Jeff Bridges in it. But apparently, he was on the brink of death after a doctor's diagnosis and COVID exasperating the illness. Recently, he spoke with PEOPLE Magazine to promote the new season of his FX show The Old Man. There, Jeff gets candid about his struggles with non-Hodgkin lymphoma, a form of blood cancer. He discloses this information publicly back in October 2020 but he's kept most of the details private up until this point.
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Around that time period, the show goes on hiatus due to the COVID pandemic and the restrictions set in place. Then, Jeff goes to the doctor for a routine checkup just to find out he has a huge tumor in his stomach. "God, looking back on those, I really winced because I didn't know it at the time, but I had a 9 by 12 inch tumor in my stomach — 9 by 12 inch! — while I'm getting smacked around and punched in the stomach and stuff," Bridges recalls. "Didn't hurt. There was no pain. But then I had this long hiatus [from filming]."
Jeff Bridges Admits He Didn't Feel Like Fighting His Condition Upon His Diagnosis
Afterwards, Jeff Bridges undergoes chemotherapy to treat his condition. However, it leaves him feeling incredibly defeated, wondering if he's going to die. "While I was sick, I thought I not only wouldn't go back to The Old Man, I thought I might just kick the bucket. It got down to that," Bridges admits.
Ultimately, a doctor ended up having to urge Jeff to fight back against his lymphoma diagnosis and make it out the other side. "I remember one doctor said, 'You got to fight, Jeff. You're not fighting," Bridges says. "And I had no idea what he was talking about. I was in surrender mode, just, 'Everybody dies. This might be me doing that.' And out of that surrender, like I say, all of this intense love surfaced, and maybe that's what caused me to survive, I don't know. But I didn't relate to the fighting thing, more of a surrendering."
