Al Pacino Reveals He Almost Died of Covid in 2020: ‘I Didn’t Have a Pulse’

Al Pacino has revealed that he nearly died of Covid-19 four years ago in a pair of new interviews ahead of the legendary actor’s upcoming memoir.

Speaking to both the New York Times and People, Pacino said that during his coronavirus bout in 2020, before vaccines were available, he suffered a medical emergency and at one point “didn’t have a pulse.”

“I thought I experienced death. I might not have. I don’t think I have, really. I know I made it,” Pacino told People.

“I don’t think I died. Everybody thought I was dead. How could I be dead? If I was dead, I fainted. And when I opened my eyes, there were six paramedics in my living room. There was an ambulance outside the door, and two of my doctors in those space suits [like] on Mars. I looked around and I thought, ‘What happened to me?’”

Pacino credited his “great assistant Michael Quinn” with acting quickly and calling the paramedics. “He got the people coming, because the nurse that was taking care of me said, ‘I don’t feel a pulse on this guy,’” he said.

Pacino writes about his near-death experience at length in his upcoming memoir Sonny Boy. When asked by the New York Times if he experienced anything “metaphysical” during his brush with death, Pacino said, “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,’” Pacino added. “It was no more. You’re gone. I’d never thought about it in my life. But you know actors: It sounds good to say I died once. What is it when there’s no more?”

The 84-year-old actor added of death, “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. Just comes, like a lot of things just come.”

From Rolling Stone US.