Jeff Bridges is telling the truth about a big event.
In a recent interview with The Independent, the 72-year-old actor talked about the health problems he has to deal with before he can walk his daughter down the aisle at her wedding in August 2021.
Bridges was told he had non-Hodgkin lymphoma in October 2020, and in January 2021, he got in touch with COVID-19. He said at the end of last year that his cancer is gone.
Before the wedding of his daughter, “The first goal was how long can I stand up,” he told The Independent.
The Oscar winner says that at the time, he could only stand for 45 seconds. Then, he worked with a trainer to increase the number of steps he could take and to keep his breathing steady while he was using oxygen.
He told the newspaper that working with a trainer every day made him work even harder.
Bridges explained, “Finally, one day I said, ‘Maybe I can do it, you know.’ And it turns out I not only got to walk her down the aisle, but I got to do the wedding dance. That was terrific.”
In Kestrel Park in Santa Ynez, California, his daughter Hayley married the man she had loved for a long time, Justin Shane.
She told Brides that Bridges had given a speech that “touched on a trait of Justin’s that I also mentioned in my vows, which is that kids and dogs love him,” adding: “I believe this to be an example of his wonderful energy.”
Bridges told PEOPLE in May 2022 that when his health problems were at their worst, he spent almost five months in the hospital.
“I had no defenses. That’s what chemo does — it strips you of all your immune system. I had nothing to fight it,” he said. “COVID made my cancer look like nothing.”
He said that he couldn’t turn over in bed without calling the nurse to help him with his oxygen. “I was pretty close to dying. The doctors kept telling me, ‘Jeff, you’ve got to fight. You’re not fighting.’ I was in surrender mode. I was ready to go. I was dancing with my mortality,” he said.
