Jeremy Renner is getting real about his brush with death—and the incredible peace he found on the other side.
The 54-year-old actor was nearly killed in a horrific snowplow accident in January 2023. Now, over two years later, he’s opening up about what happened when he flatlined—and why coming back wasn’t something he initially wanted.
Speaking with Kelly Ripa on her Let’s Talk podcast, Jeremy revealed that the experience of dying was surprisingly beautiful.
“It’s a great relief is all I can say,” Jeremy shared. “It’s a wonderful, wonderful relief to be removed from your body. It is the most exhilarating peace you could ever feel.”
“You don’t see anything but what’s in your mind’s eye,” he continued. “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.”
The feeling was so profound that Jeremy admitted he was angry to be pulled out of it.
“And I didn’t want to come back,” he said. “I remember, and I was brought back and I was so pissed off. I came back, I’m like, ‘Aww!’”
He also vividly recalled the moment he regained consciousness. “I saw the eyeball again, I’m like, ‘Oh, s–t, I’m back,’” he said. “Saw my legs. I’m like, ‘Yeah, that’s gonna hurt later.’ I’m like, ‘All right, let me continue to breathe.’”
Kelly asked if he saw or spoke to anyone while on the “other side,” but Jeremy explained that it’s not like that. “You don’t need to. That’s a human experience. Time is a human construct. It’s useless. It’s not linear. It’s not how it exists,” he said. “It’s just like the most remedial version of your spirit’s existence is being on Earth. This is so remedial, language, all these things and blah, blah, blah… It’s all knowing, all experiencing, all at the same time, all at once.”
Despite the trauma, Jeremy now sees the accident as a blessing in disguise—a life reset.
“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–k. I’m going to live life on my own terms and for nobody else. [It’s] very clear. The white noise is ripped away.”
The experience also shifted his priorities in a huge way.
“I gave so much value to things that have zero value,” Jeremy reflected. “So I invest into no stocks or bonds. I invest not into crypto or Bitcoin. I invest into love and my shared relationships that I experience love with. ’cause that is the only thing that you take with you.”
