Jeff Bridges: Actor says cancer is in remission but 'Covid kicked my ass'

Image source, Getty Images

US actor Jeff Bridges has said his cancer is now in remission, but that Covid "kicked my ass pretty good".

The 71-year-old Big Lebowski star told fans he spent five weeks in hospital with coronavirus earlier this year.

Posting on his website on Monday, he said he had since been able to walk his daughter Hayley down the aisle and dance with her at her wedding.

Last year, the Oscar-winner revealed he had been diagnosed with lymphoma but said his prognosis was "good".

"My cancer is in remission," he wrote this week. "The 9" x 12" (22.5cm x 30cm) mass has shrunk down to the size of a marble. My Covid is in the rear view mirror.

"Covid kicked my ass pretty good, but I'm double vaccinated and feeling much better now."

Image source, Getty Images

Image caption, Jeff Bridges won the best actor Oscar for Crazy Heart in 2010

Bridges won the best actor Oscar for the 2009 drama Crazy Heart, but is perhaps best known for his portrayal of the anti-hero The Dude in the Coen brothers' cult crime comedy bowling movie The Big Lebowski.

He thanked his medical team for enabling him to walk again without an oxygen device. "The sound it makes reminds me of Darth Vader," he joked.

'Close to the pearly gates'

The veteran actor also linked to an update he had written in March but decided to hold back until he "got a handle on my Covid". He said he had been exposed to the virus, which also put his producer wife Susan in hospital for five days, while getting chemotherapy.

"My dance with Covid makes my cancer look like a piece of cake," he wrote, adding he felt he had been "gettin' close to the pearly gates" at one stage.

"This brush with mortality has brought me a real gift - life is brief and beautiful," he went on. "Love is all around us, and available at all times."

He confirmed he is now well enough to return to work on forthcoming thriller The Old Man.

In 2016, Bridges said he was "trying not to act" as much any more because it was too much commitment.

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