{"id":139040,"date":"2025-08-12T07:02:10","date_gmt":"2025-08-12T07:02:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/139040\/"},"modified":"2025-08-12T07:02:10","modified_gmt":"2025-08-12T07:02:10","slug":"jason-momoa-opens-up-on-the-near-death-experience-that-made-him-quit-smoking","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/139040\/","title":{"rendered":"Jason Momoa Opens Up On The Near-Death Experience That Made Him Quit Smoking"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jason Momoa<\/a> has revealed that he nearly drowned while surfing in his native Hawaii<\/a>, leading him to quit smoking.<\/p>\n

The \u201cChief of War\u201d star, in an appearance on the \u201cSmartless\u201d podcast with Jason Bateman, Sean Hayes and Will Arnett<\/a>, recalled going to the renowned big wave surfing<\/a> break Pe\u2019ahi (Jaws) in Maui when \u2014 while almost a mile offshore \u2014 the leash connected to his surfboard snapped.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s so windy on Maui, and so the board just went. I couldn\u2019t even see it anymore,\u201d said the actor, who had paddled 13 miles down the coast with friends at the time.<\/p>\n

Momoa, who wanted to be a surfer growing up<\/a> and who hails from a family of<\/a> celebrated<\/a> surfers and watermen, said he \u201ctrained pretty well\u201d for such situations, but he \u201ctook quite a few\u201d to the head as 10-foot high waves rolled in.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s actually, this place is called Shitfucks, and it\u2019s literally because there\u2019s all this water that pulls out … and it just pulls you out and you just get hit with these waves,\u201d he explained.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo I was stuck in this crazy spot, which is probably the outer reef, and unknown to me, I was really on the outer reef, and they couldn\u2019t see me, and I had my paddle, and I was waving it, and they couldn\u2019t see me. And the waves were so big, it basically took my shorts off they were so fucking big.\u201d<\/p>\n

Momoa noted that he began to think of his daughter, who was 3 months old at the time, and he was unable to move his arms and legs.<\/p>\n

\u201cLike I literally gave up, and I\u2019m screaming inside, and my foot just hits the outer reef. And I don\u2019t know if it was a fucking whale or like just could be one rock, but I just reached down, grabbed it, I jump up, I get hit by another wave,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI dig my feet into the coral, and I\u2019m literally in the middle of the ocean, and I\u2019m just, I could barely put my lips above it just to breathe and get a break, but I had already given up. So it\u2019s like, you\u2019ve already given up and died and have a second chance at it.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said one of his friends came to the rescue, but it was \u201cbrutal\u201d getting out to safety, adding that his feet were \u201ccovered in blood.\u201d<\/p>\n

Momoa said he used to smoke two to three packs of cigarettes a day before the experience.<\/p>\n

\u201cI couldn\u2019t stop for my kids, I couldn\u2019t stop for my ex, I couldn\u2019t stop smoking<\/a>,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe moment I came out, I never smoked again. I just died. I just died. I tried and tried, but I couldn\u2019t do it again because I just, I gave up. Like, I gave up my life.\u201d<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jason Momoa has revealed that he nearly drowned while surfing in his native Hawaii, leading him to quit…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":139041,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[185,171,26621,33706,83204,36202,71777,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-139040","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-celebrities","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-hawaii","11":"tag-jason-momoa","12":"tag-smartless-podcast","13":"tag-smoking","14":"tag-surfing","15":"tag-united-states","16":"tag-unitedstates","17":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115014516451233446","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139040","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=139040"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139040\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/139041"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=139040"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=139040"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=139040"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}