Al Pacino says childhood injury to his penis will always ‘haunt’ him
Topics: Celebrity, Film and TV, Health, Books
Poppy Bilderbeck
Featured Image Credit: Dominik Bindl/Getty Images / Dominik Bindl/Getty Images
Topics: Celebrity, Film and TV, Health, Books
If there's one thing you probably weren't expecting to read about today, it's Al Pacino's penis.
The Godfather actor contracted 'bad covid' in 2020 and ended up battling a life-threatening infection which saw his pulse temporarily 'gone'.
However, that's not the first time the 84-year-old has suffered a traumatic injury, which continues to plays on his mind to this day.
Advert
In his memoir Sonny Boy, Pacino reflects on having had 'more mishaps and accidents than [he] can count'.
And one of them which has stuck in his head over 70 years later is when he - and his penis - were involved in an incident when he was the age of 10.
Despite noting it makes him 'squeamish' to tell the story, the actor dives in revealing what happened, which has left him 'haunted' to this day. He went on to reveal he wasn't just walking on 'a thin, iron fence' but doing his 'tightrope dance' and also didn't take into consideration it had been 'raining all morning'.
In the book, Pacino explains: "Sure enough, I slipped and fell, and the iron bar hit me directly between my legs. [I] was in such pain that I could hardly walk home. An older guy saw me groaning in the street, picked me up, and carried me."
Pacino ended up popped in his bed, his pants 'completely down around [his] ankles' with his mom, aunt and grandmother peering down at him.
"The three women in my life [...] poked and prodded at my penis in a semi-panic,” Pacino continued. "I thought, God, please take me now, as I heard them whispering things to one another as they conducted their inspection."
Thankfully, his penis lived to see another day, the member 'remain[ing] attached, along with the trauma'.
Although, Pacino added: "To this day I’m haunted by the thought of it."
And it's not the only traumatic experience Pacino has opened up about, speaking about experiencing 'bad covid' and having nurses round to administer fluids when they realized he 'didn't have a pulse'.
He revealed: "I was sitting there in my house, and I was gone. Like that."
While he 'didn't see the white light or anything' that others report when having a near miss with death, Pacino reflected on the moment his pulse was 'gone' as being very much like 'you're here' one moment and then 'you're not'.
However, while he did experience some sort of shift, he added there was ultimately 'nothing there,' resolving: "I thought: Wow, you don’t even have your memories. You have nothing. Strange porridge."