Jason Momoa is a big dude. He clocks in at 6’ 4” and around 230 pounds.
So, one might assume that’d take a lot to take down Aquaman himself, and the star of the new show on Apple TV+, chronicling pre-contact Hawaii, Chief of War.
However, Momoa is a mere mortal. And during a recent appearance on the wildly popular “Smartless” podcast – hosted by Will Arnett, Jason Bateman, and Sean Hayes – the half native Hawaiian actor talked about how he nearly drowned surfing on Maui.
Mamoa begins the near-death tale by setting the scene. He was doing an open-ocean paddle with big wave legends Laird Hamilton and Dave Kalama. They were off the coast of Maui, near Jaws. And then, things got a little sketchy. Momoa explained:
“We paddled 13 miles down the coast, and you’re kind of almost a mile offshore, and then my leash snapped. It’s so windy on Maui, and so the board just went. I couldn’t even see it anymore.”
Hayes then jumped in to get some clarification. Was the actor prepared for a scenario like this? What did he do next? What happened? Momoa continued:
“I was trained pretty well, so it was fine. So, it was just, I took quite a few on the head. They were pretty big, like 10-foot Hawaiian waves, but I’m literally probably a mile offshore. It’s actually, this place is called Sh*tf*ks, and it’s literally because there’s all this water that pulls out, and it just pulls you out and you just get hit with these waves. So, 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’t see me, and I had my paddle and I was waving it, and they couldn’t see me.”
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Then, he added: “The waves were so big, it took my shorts off they were so f*king big.”
At that point, Momoa had pretty much given up hope. He thought he was a goner. But he gave it one last push, one last go, by literally hoisting himself up off the outer reef.
“I literally gave up and I’m screaming inside, and my foot just hits the outer reef, and I don’t know if it was a f–king whale or like just could be one rock, but I just reached down, grabbed it, I jump up, I get hit by another wave,” Momoa said. “I dig my feet into the coral and I’m literally in the middle of the ocean, and I’m just, I could barely put my lips above it 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.”
Soon after, Laird (who else?) came to the rescue. He showed up with Momoa’s board, and they paddled their way to safety. “It was brutal,” he said. “I was covered in blood.”
Chief of War is streaming now.
Related: Chris Hemsworth, Mick Fanning Surf Shark-Infested Waters (Video)