Frail Paul Hogan, 83, is 'falling apart' and desperately wants to come home to Australia
By SAVANNA YOUNG FOR DAILY MAIL AUSTRALIA
PUBLISHED: 16:28 EST, 7 November 2022 | UPDATED: 17:26 EST, 7 November 2022
Crocodile Dundee star Paul Hogan has shared his debilitating health struggles, admitting he's desperate to spend his last years back home in Australia.
The actor and comedian, 83, sat down for an interview with A Current Affair host Tracy Grimshaw - her last before she leaves Nine's flagship program after 17 years.
Hogan, who is living in Los Angeles, California, with his 24-year-old son Chance, said he's too weak to open a jar, has 'zero body fat' and recently had a pacemaker fitted.
'[I've] been better. I had a problem on the aorta in the kidney and the treatment fixed it, but it shrunk me,' Hogan told Grimshaw.
'I just... I've lost all my body fat and the muscles all shrank and the strength has come back, because it left me feeble. I get Chance to open jars for me.'
The condition Hogan is referring to is retro peritoneal fibrosis: a benign growth that has wrapped around the abdominal aorta and pressed on his kidney.
'Quite a few of my friends on diets hate me for it because I try and eat everything fatty and lardy you can think of. Everything they're not allowed to have. I can't put on an ounce,' he added.
He was prescribed corticosteroids to shrink the growth, but now needs to regain his strength after the health scare dramatically changed his physique.
Hogan said the steroid treatment was worse than the disease.
'They shrink your muscles and [they're] supposed to make you fat, but I got thinner and thinner and thinner,' Hogan revealed.
'I'm now in the business of trying to put a bit of fat on… because you feel the cold too much when you've got no body fat.'
Hogan now has a pacemaker fitted and is 'being held together by string'.
The Golden Globe winner said he always 'maintained' his fitness up until he was 79, and admits he is lucky to have been healthy for so long.
'I was still fit. I'd still take out most 40 year olds,' he said.
'And then I turned 80 and it's lovely that saying that "turning 80 is not for sissies" because things start to fall apart.'
Hogan is desperate to return home to Australia as his health declines, but says he can't leave his son Chance alone in California.
He shares Chance with ex-wife Linda Kozlowski, his co-star from Crocodile Dundee.
'I'm not in the place I'm meant to be, but I'm not allowed to complain about anything,' he continued.
'I've had such a gifted life. I've had so many wonderful things happen to me without deserving them so I shouldn't complain but, yeah, ideally I'd rather be back in Sydney because I miss the rest of my family there.'
Hogan revealed last month he'd been 'homesick for years'.
'I miss the people, the ambience – and there's something you just can't put your finger on, but there's something about Australia that is friendlier and more laid-back,' he told The Daily Telegraph.
'It never takes itself seriously – there's no arrogance like there is in other places.'
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