Jason Momoa has revealed that he once suffered a harrowing near-death surfing accident that had a profound impact on his life.
The actor said that he was “screaming inside” during the traumatic event and figuratively believed he “died” while stranded off the coast of Maui, Hawaii.
Momoa claimed that the accident had such a big impact on his life that he decided to ditch his smoking habit, having previously smoked two or three packs a day.
The moment happened in October 2007, just three months after the birth of his daughter, during an open-ocean paddle with surfing legends Laird Hamilton and Dave Kalama.
The trio were surfing off the coast of Maui near a famous location called Peʻahi, otherwise known as “Jaws”.
Despite being from a family of surfers, things went awry for Momoa when the leash for his surfboard snapped a mile offshore.
Appearing on Jason Bateman, Sean Hayes and Will Arnett’s Smartless podcast, Momoa said: “I was trained pretty well, so it was fine. I took quite a few [waves] on the head. They were pretty big, like 10-foot Hawaiian waves, but I’m literally probably a mile offshore.”
Continuing, Momoa said that he was “stuck in this crazy spot” on “the outer reef” and that his friends couldn’t see him. The waves continued to batter the Dune star and were so strong that they ripped his shorts off.
Momoa presumed that all hope was lost and he was going to die, but by chance managed to anchor himself. “Like I literally gave up, and I’m screaming inside, and my foot just hits the outer reef,” he explained. “And I don’t know if it was a f***ing whale or like just could be one rock, but I just reached down, grabbed it, I jump up, I get hit by another wave.”
“I dig my feet into the coral, and I’m literally in the middle of the ocean. I could barely put my lips above the water just to breathe and get a break, but I had already given up. So it’s like, you’ve already given up and died and have a second chance at it.”
After 10 minutes, Momoa said that his arms and legs had given up, but Hamilton miraculously managed to save him. However, Momoa says it was “brutal” paddling out to safety, as his feet were now bleeding. “I was in a bad spot,” he said.
Once he got to safety, Momoa remarked that the experience persuaded him to quit smoking for good.
“I couldn’t stop for my kids, I couldn’t stop for my ex, I couldn’t stop smoking,” the 46-year-old stated. “The moment I came out, I never smoked again. I just died. I just died. I tried and tried, but I couldn’t do it again because I just, I gave up. Like, I gave up my life.”
Momoa, who was born in Honolulu, is currently promoting his new Apple TV+ series Chief of War, which tells the story of a the unification of the Hawaiian islands from an indigenous perspective, bringing to life a side of his culture that’s often overlooked and underrepresented.
“We’ve all seen Dances with Wolves and The Last of the Mohicans,” Momoa told The Independent. “I wanted to do that for my people.”
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