In news that hits harder than your ex texting “U up?”, we now know the official cause of death for Top Gun and Batman Forever icon Val Kilmer — and it’s not because he realized they replaced him with George Clooney and nipples on the Batsuit.
Val, the OG Iceman and everyone’s favorite mumbly Hollywood enigma, sadly passed away on April 1st at the age of 65. (No, it was not an elaborate April Fool’s joke — life really just has that kind of sick timing.)
According to his death certificate (shoutout to TMZ, the nosiest neighbor of the internet), Val’s cause of death has been listed as pneumonia — the ultimate party crasher of the lung world. But wait, there’s more! Like a very tragic Russian nesting doll, the underlying causes also included acute hypoxemic respiratory failure, chronic respiratory failure, and something that sounds like it should be a Bond villain: squamous cell carcinoma of the base of the tongue.
Translation: Val had been in a long battle with throat cancer since 2014, and that jerk of a disease was not playing around. By 2017, he told us he was experiencing “a healing of cancer,” which sounded hopeful at the time. The man even had a tracheostomy and was out here using a voice device like the world’s coolest cyborg just to keep sharing his thoughts. Commitment to the drama? 10/10.
Val was cremated on April 7 — because even in death, he kept it smokin’. 🔥
And in case your heart wasn’t already melting faster than an ice cream cone at Coachella, his legendary ex-girlfriend Cher came through with a sweet tribute. Because nothing says “true love” like being remembered by Cher. (Seriously, name someone cooler. We’ll wait.)
So pour one out for Val, preferably something strong and dramatic — maybe a martini with dry ice and a side of poetry — because the man lived big, talked like a mystic cowboy, and made even tongue cancer seem oddly philosophical.
Fly high, Iceman. You’ll always be too cool for this world. ❄️🕊️
