Conflicting reports emerge on Val Kilmer's final days. Here's what we know — and what we don't.

Yahoo

03-04-2025

In the wake of Val Kilmer's death on April 1 at age 65, there have been touching tributes from costars and career retrospectives sure to inspire new viewings of his most memorable roles, from Top Gun to Tombstone. There have also been conflicting reports about Kilmer's health in his final days.
A report from TMZ claims the actor and artist was 'unable to get out of bed for years before his death.' Unidentified family sources told the outlet that Kilmer was 'cancer-free' — after being diagnosed with throat cancer in 2014, undergoing chemo, radiation and two tracheotomies — but he had a 'lack of energy' due to the treatments and he was 'bed-bound for a long time.'
Kilmer was 'frail near the end of his life' and his 'health seriously declined in the past week,' leading friends and family to hold vigil at his hospital bedside in the days before his death, according to TMZ. He had also been hospitalized earlier this year.
Yet Kilmer was also reportedly scheduled to appear at the Beverly Hills Film Festival on the day he died, People reported.
On April 2, festival founder Nino Simone told the outlet that 'we had just confirmed Val to attend the West Coast premiere of American Badass: A Michael Madsen Retrospective.' Simone said Kilmer's appearance was confirmed 'this past weekend' — just two or three days before his death.
There were arrangements for Kilmer to arrive on the red carpet at 7:30 p.m. on April 1, Simone said. The festival's PR team was trying to connect with Kilmer's driver to finalize plans.
'The story and news of his death were reported literally at the same, exact time,' Simone said. 'Unbelievable, and so heartbreaking. Our hearts go out to his family.'
Those are two contrasting takes under the circumstances. What we do know is that Kilmer died from pneumonia on Tuesday, his daughter, Mercedes, announced. She said he was surrounded by family and friends. It was also noted that he had recovered from throat cancer.
In the 2021 documentary about his life, Val, Kilmer talked about his health struggles after cancer, which affected his voice. He could speak only by pushing a button on an apparatus in his trachea. His son, Jack, narrated the film using his dad's words.
'Now that it's more difficult to speak, I want to tell my story more than ever,' Kilmer said in the documentary.
Kilmer also released a 2020 autobiography, I'm Your Huckleberry: A Memoir, detailing his career and health struggles.
While Kilmer may have planned to attend the Beverly Hills Film Festival on April 1, he hadn't made a red carpet appearance in years. The last photos of him at a Hollywood event — captured by Getty Images or the Associated Press — are from 2019. He attended several events that year.
Kilmer did not attend the Val premieres in 2021, letting the two children he had with his by-then-ex-wife, Joanne Whalley, represent him.
In August 2021, his daughter shared a health update with Extra, saying, Kilmer was 'doing well. Still recovering. The recovery process is just as grueling as the actual disease.'
As for his absence at the L.A. premiere of his film, she told Entertainment Tonight that he had already seen the film 'probably a thousand times, so we can't control what he does' as far as him attending.
Kilmer's son told the same outlet, 'We wish he could be here, but he's here in spirit, and he's just so proud of this and that people get to see a side of him that has never been seen before.'
Kilmer famously made a cameo in 2022's Top Gun: Maverick — reuniting "Iceman" and Tom Cruise's "Maverick" after more than three decades — but he didn't attend any of those premieres around the globe either.
His Instagram account remained active. His final post, on March 22, was of one of his paintings, which he also sold on his website. On Feb. 23, there was a video posted to his account in which he was playfully putting on a Batman mask with artist and musician David Choe. TMZ reported that the video was actually from 'years ago [and] his appearance in it isn't accurate to how he looked in the last months of his life.'
Although Kilmer's romantic status at the end of his life is unclear, the actor — who was linked to Cher, Angelina Jolie, Cindy Crawford and others — wrote in his memoir, 'I haven't had a girlfriend in 20 years. The truth is I am lonely part of every day.' (Kilmer remained friends with Cher and stayed with her during his cancer battle.)
Kilmer's health woes presented challenges in his everyday life. In his 2020 New York Times profile, it noted he used both a tracheostomy tube and a feeding tube. He said had been taken off his trach tube a couple of times, but each time he did, he had a health setback, including coughs, cold and fevers.
A lifelong Christian Scientist, Kilmer talked in the same article how he underwent chemotherapy for his cancer despite its being against his religion. He said it was at the behest of his children, who are not Christian Scientists.
Kilmer also said that because of his religion, he did not believe in death. He told Men's Health in 2020, 'You have to not see it as a loss.'