“Mayor of Kingstown” star Jeremy Renner was nearly killed in a devastating snowplow accident in January 2023. Despite breaking 39 bones and claiming his recovery will be lifelong, Renner says he’s “glad” the accident happened.
“I’m glad it happened, and I wouldn’t want to do it again,” Renner told Lester Holt for the September 28 episode of his “Before and After” podcast. “But I’m glad it happened.”
What Happened?
Renner and his large family were vacationing at his home in Lake Tahoe over New Year’s in 2023.
“I’ve been fortunate enough in my success to get a house that can house everybody. Having the house in Lake Tahoe is always having like a great, magical Christmas and uniting the family together. It’s like 25 people everywhere I roll. I got like a shuttle buses and stuff so we can get around.”
He explained that the family missed their flight as a big winter storm was threatening to dump 10 to 25 feet of snow on the region.
“Getting snowed out was not an option. We need to go get snowed in, that’s better. Because then we’ll all be together,” he told Holt.
After losing power, the family decided to get outside for sledding. Renner explained that he was “gonna take the snowcat and go make some sledding trails on the property.”
He quickly recognized that his nephew was in danger as the snowcat was “sliding” and was seconds away from crushing his nephew.
“So I jumped back on this rolling machine, stupidly, but trying to save my nephew from getting killed,” he said.
The 14,000-pound machine rolled over Renner’s body, crushing him and causing nearly 100 breaks in nearly 40 bones. He explained that he could see his eyeball out of its socket with his other eye, and was simply focused on breathing to stay alive.
In April, Renner told Fox News Digital that he would be “in recovery” for the rest of his life.
“I think it goes beyond acting. I almost didn’t want to go back into acting because I had to focus so much on real life. Nonfiction kind of stuff. To go into fiction was a little difficult, but I’m glad I’m back doing it,” Renner said.
‘Glad It Happened’
Holt asked the “Avengers” star whether he thinks of all the “minor decisions,” like waking up and brushing one’s teeth, that led to Renner’s fateful accident.
“I don’t think so, because I guess in retrospect, in hindsight, you kind of look back and there were a lot of things that made it difficult just to get to the location,” he said. “We lost the keys to the car, couldn’t get on the plane where they just closed the doors when we got there—like all these sort of like warnings almost, but I’m like, why? It would have been terrible if that was a warning.”
He added, “One of the greatest thing happened to me on that morning and that day when I got ran over. The greatest thing happened. I mean, I can see that now in retrospect, but like I’m glad nothing prevented me from getting there and doing it.”
“I don’t regret trying to save my nephew; I would do it again tonight. So I don’t think there’s any signs that I should have paid attention to or decisions I would have made that I would have wanted to change,” he added.
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Jeremy Renner Called His Snowplow Accident ‘the Greatest Thing’: ‘I’m Glad It Happened’