Jeff Bridges Says His Case Of COVID-19 Made Cancer 'Look Like A Piece Of Cake'

The Dude thought he was "gettin' close to the pearly gates." But he survived coronavirus and his cancer is in remission.

Oscar-winning actor Jeff Bridges had good news about his cancer Monday, but he added that the terrifying case of COVID-19 he caught during treatment made his lymphoma seem like a “piece of cake.” The “Dude” from 1998′s “The Big Lebowski” noted on his website that his cancer is “in remission,” with a dramatic shrinking of a tumor.  In an earlier note written in March that he posted for the first time Monday, Bridges said that his “dance with COVID makes my cancer look like a piece of cake.” Bridges, 71, said when he was sick with COVID he had “moments of tremendous pain” in which he would cry out “all through the night” — and believed he was “gettin’ close to the pearly gates.”  But that’s “in the rearview mirror” now, he wrote. “This brush with mortality has brought me a real gift — life is brief & beautiful. Love is all around us, & available @ all times,” he added. Until recently, Bridges needed extra oxygen to walk around. “The sound of it reminds me of Darth Vader,” he quipped. “COVID kicked my ass pretty good, but I’m double vaccinated and feeling much better,” Bridges wrote. He speculated that the vaccine was linked to his “quick improvement.” The actor said he was informed — “hahaha” — in January by the facility where he was getting chemotherapy infusions for his cancer that he may have been exposed to the coronavirus there. Vaccinations were not generally available at the time. “Soon after,” he and his wife, Sue Geston, who also contracted COVID-19, “share an ambulance to the ICU,” Bridges wrote. His wife was in the hospital five days. Bridges was in the hospital with COVID for five weeks because “my immune system is shot from chemo,” he added. A relieved Bridges said that he was able to meet his goal of walking his daughter Hayley down the aisle for her recent wedding and dance with her “without oxygen.” He posted a video of the wedding dance to Ray Charles’s “Ain’t That Love,” which can be seen here by clicking on the sketch of dad and daughter. And, so very Dude-like, he also shared this video about home and the heart: