Was Val Kilmer a smoker? Childhood affliction explored in wake of ‘Batman’ star's death at 65 

Actor Val Kilmer died in Los Angeles on Tuesday, April 1, 2025, at the age of 65 from pneumonia, his daughter Mercedes Kilmer told the New York Times.

Over the years, Kilmer battled throat cancer which was diagnosed in 2014, which led him to undergo surgery to remove a tumor. However, he did not disclose his health struggles until 2017, after his co-star Michael Douglas, another cancer survivor, revealed to journalists at a May 2016 event that Val was “dealing with exactly what I had.”

While Val Kilmer initially denied having cancer, he later admitted it during a Reddit AMA session while promoting his 2017 movie, Cinema Twain.

“He [Douglas] was probably trying to help me ‘cause the press probably asked where I was these days, and I did have a healing of cancer, but my tongue is still swollen although healing all the time. Because I don’t sound my normal self yet people think I may still be under the weather,” Val shared back then.

He later went into remission. Val Kilmer was a smoker who reportedly began smoking at the age of 8, according to a Daily Mail article from April 2020. The outlet noted that the actor once shared in an interview that he secretly took his uncle’s Pall Mall cigarettes and sneaked away to a treehouse to smoke them, a habit he later regretted.

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Val Kilmer underwent a tracheostomy and used a voice box

In addition to undergoing chemotherapy and radiation for his throat cancer, Val Kilmer also had a procedure called tracheostomy. According to the NHS, a tracheostomy, or tracheotomy, is an “opening created at the front of the neck so a tube can be inserted into the windpipe.” This procedure helps deliver oxygen to the lungs when the usual route is obstructed or narrowed.

Due to his tracheostomy, Val Kilmer faced challenges in speaking and swallowing food. Consequently, he relied on a voice box for communication, alongside a feeding tube. In his 2021 self-titled Amazon documentary, where he discussed his medical journey, Val was shown using the voice box. His son Jack narrated on his father’s behalf.

“My name is Val Kilmer. I’m an actor. I’ve lived a magical life, and I’ve captured quite a bit of it. I was recently diagnosed with throat cancer. I’m still struggling and recovering, and it is difficult to talk and to be understood, but I want to tell my story more than ever," he shared.

Val Kilmer on 12.08.1992 in München / Munich. (Photo by Fryderyk Gabowicz/picture alliance via Getty Images)

The documentary included 40 years of personal home videos and images that the actor used to record his “own life and craft,” according to the description. It also stated that the docuseries featured “thousands of hours of footage, from 16mm home movies made with his brothers to time spent in iconic roles for blockbuster movies like Top Gun, The Doors, Tombstone, and Batman Forever.”

"This raw, wildly original, and unflinching documentary reveals a life lived to extremes and a heart-filled, sometimes hilarious look at what it means to be an artist and a complex man," the bio added.

After his tracheostomy, Val Kilmer always wore a scarf in public. In a 2017 interview with the Hollywood Reporter, the father of two revealed more about his cancer journey. He expressed skepticism about it due to his Christian Science beliefs; however, he noted that this same faith later helped him through the ordeal. The Real Genius actor discussed living with a permanently changed voice.

Years later, during an April 2020 appearance on Good Morning America, the Californian shared that he was cancer-free, although it had a life-altering effect on him, and he missed speaking and laughing like a pirate. However, Val Kilmer expressed gratitude for regaining his health and remarked that he had “healed very quickly.”

"I feel a lot better than I sound but I feel wonderful," he shared before mentioning how the tracheostomy was needed to help him breathe as the glands in his throat had swelled up.

That same year, Val Kilmer sat down with the New York Times and revealed that he initially denied having cancer because he “didn’t have” the disease. Instead, he saw it as a thing of the “past” where he experienced “complications” from its “treatment.”

“When they asked me, I didn’t have cancer. It was a bit like do you have a broken bone? And if you broke it in high school, you would say no. I have had a bone broken, but why are you being so aggressive? I had a bone broken. It was broken in my leg. ‘Oh, so you have a broken leg.’ ‘No, no, I don’t,’ I say. I did have a broken leg,” he stated.

In his 2020 memoir, I’m Your Huckleberry: A Memoir, Val Kilmer recalled that his cancer journey began with him coughing up coagulated blood and thinking it was the “day of my death.” The Top Gun: Maverick actor recalled pushing himself into an ambulance and waking up at a Santa Monica hospital after an emergency procedure.

Val Kilmer mentioned that his former girlfriend, Cher, helped him transfer to David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, where he spent two months undergoing cancer treatment. He further noted experiencing a "miraculous healing."

In August 2021, his children, Mercedes and Jack, provided an update on their father’s cancer journey during an interview with ExtraTV. While Mercedes stated that the “recovery process is just as grueling as the actual disease,” Jack noted that everyone had been “so supportive” it made them “emotional,” adding it was “really beautiful to see people come together.”

Val Kilmer is survived by his two children, whom he shared with his ex-wife and actress, Joanne Whalley.