The Scary Health Issue Al Pacino Almost Didn't Come Back From

The world once came dangerously close to losing Al Pacino without realizing it. The veteran actor was one of many celebrities who tested positive for the coronavirus during the height of the pandemic. However, unlike some stars who were able to weather the novel disease at the time, Pacino was hit particularly hard by COVID-19. Speaking with The New York Times, he confided that he displayed symptoms typically associated with the disease, including a fever and dehydration, before it was lights out for the "Scarface" star. "I was sitting there in my house, and I was gone. Like that. I didn't have a pulse. In a matter of minutes they were there — the ambulance in front of my house," Pacino said.

Paramedics and medical staff helped resuscitate Pacino once he lost consciousness, but the Oscar winner had no recollection of anything that happened after his blackout, which he found eerie. "I thought: Wow, you don't even have your memories. You have nothing. Strange porridge," he said. Unfortunately, Pacino also didn't have much to report back regarding his journey to the other side. "I didn't see the white light or anything. There's nothing there," Pacino remembered.

Al Pacino seems convinced that there isn't anything after death. However, he's at peace with that belief and feels his apathetic approach to the subject stems from aging more than anything else. "It's natural, I guess, to have a different view of death as you get older. It's just the way it is. I didn't ask for it," Pacino said. Additionally, Pacino finds solace in the fact that he'd be leaving behind a family if he ever met an untimely end. For Pacino, his kids offer him the same kind of posthumous consolation as his career. The Hollywood legend has four kids, the last of which he shares with ex-girlfriend Noor Alfallah despite their tremendous 54-year age gap at the time of their child's birth. 

Pacino's bout with COVID wasn't the first time he faced the harsh reality of death. His mother, Rose Gerard Pacino, was 43 when she died from what was ruled as an accidental overdose. Pacino was only 22 when she passed. Speaking with CBS Sunday Morning, he explained how different it was dealing with death in his younger years compared to now. "Dealing with death, it was more shocking at that time because I've experienced so much of it in life," Pacino said. "If you keep going, you're going to see a lot of death."