\n<\/p>\n
Jeremy Renner<\/a>\u00a0is opening up about his terrifying accident. The 53-year-old actor recently appeared on\u00a0<\/span>The Kelly Clarkson Show<\/em><\/a>, and recalled being <\/span>crushed by a snowplow<\/a> back in January 2023.<\/span><\/p>\n “To me, it felt like maybe I just got the wind knocked out of me, but I did break 38 bones, my eye came out of my head, [I] crushed my skull. It was pretty terrible,” Renner admitted. “[I] got through it, so that’s really all that matters at the end of the day.”<\/span><\/p>\n Getting through it<\/a> wasn’t easy, though, a fact that was initially “hidden” from\u00a0<\/span>Ava Berlin Renner<\/a>, the 11-year-old daughter the actor shares with his ex,\u00a0Sonni Pacheco.<\/span><\/p>\n “The initial 14 days, it was a lot of life support. I wasn’t kind of supposed to make it,” Renner said. “She was hidden from all of that. I even forgot about my daughter. That’s how messed up I was after the accident.”<\/span><\/p>\n When he got home from the hospital and was told that his daughter was there to see him, Renner said “that’s when it all kicked in for me.”<\/span><\/p>\n “That’s when my life support really kicked in, because my daughter is my life force,” he said. “It’s everything. I saw the fear in my daughter’s face for the first time. That’s when I was looking in a mirror, like, ‘Ah, I must look pretty terrible.’ I was a hot mess.”<\/span><\/p>\n “The reality of what transpired really set in, what I’d done to my daughter, what I actually did to my nephew, my whole family, that really set in,” Renner continued. “I asked her to wait for me. I said, ‘These are just 38 broken bones, darling, and they’re all going to heal. I promise, if you wait for me, I will be better, I will be faster, I will be stronger than you’ve ever seen before. I promise. You have to wait for me.'”<\/span><\/p>\n It’s a sentiment Renner later expressed through music. On the one-year anniversary of his accident, <\/span>Renner released<\/a> his first single, titled “Wait,” off of his EP,\u00a0<\/span>Love and Titanium<\/em><\/a>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n “Reason number one for my recovery is her. I asked her to ‘wait for me’ when I first saw her January 14 as I arrived home. As I got better, she got better, less afraid,” Renner wrote on Instagram at the time.\u00a0“There is simply no better motivator to recover than to heal your family and friends.”<\/span><\/p>\n During his talk show appearance, Renner said that healing through music was “very cathartic” for himself and his family.<\/span><\/p>\n “My daughter plays piano [and I wanted to] get her involved in the process, turn it into something positive,” he said. “That’s what I’ve always been trying to do since the accident. Music was a great outlet.”<\/span><\/p>\n In\u00a0<\/span>a recent interview with ET<\/a>, Renner opened up about another aspect of his recovery — getting back to work. Renner\u00a0<\/span>returned to the set<\/a>\u00a0of\u00a0<\/span>Mayor of Kingstown<\/em><\/a>\u00a0in January 2024, despite being worried\u00a0that he wouldn’t be able to do “basic duties” of his job.<\/span><\/p>\n “It was something unlike I really felt before. I was in a place of self-doubt,” the\u00a0<\/span>Hawkeye\u00a0<\/span><\/em>star said. “It’s 12 hours, 14 hours on a set. Whether you’re doing stunts or not, it’s exhausting.”<\/span><\/p>\n With the help of the cast and crew, Renner was able to “figure it out” and even insert some of his real-life emotion into his portrayal of his character.<\/span><\/p>\n “I inserted a lot of what I was feeling into that moment,” Renner said, adding that his character, Mike McLusky, has\u00a0“a bit more delicacy to him this season because of [being] forced to be informed by my condition.”<\/span><\/p>\n Season 3 of\u00a0<\/span>Mayor of Kingstown<\/span><\/em>\u00a0—\u00a0which also stars Dianne Wiest, Hugh Dylan, Emma Laird and Kyle Chandler — will\u00a0hit Paramount+ on June 2.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n