LOS ANGELES—A new documentary about porn icon Ron Jeremy is set to debut on DVD and VOD May 5 from Breaking Glass Pictures.
Helmed by two-time Emmy Award-winning producer/director Hedda Muskat, Ron Jeremy: Life After the Buffet comes as a quasi follow-up to 2001 biopic Porn Star: The Legend of Ron Jeremy, the focus this time around being Jeremy's personal journey of lifestyle alteration following the major heart surgery he underwent in 2013.
"This lady [Muskat] came along who had really good credentials, she worked with Judge Judy and a lot of other really well-known TV shows," Jeremy told AVN, "and she said she really wanted to do this documentary on me after my operation ... on how I've handled life after the operation knowing I had to do certain things differently, or frankly, I'll just die, there's no two ways about it."
Jeremy's surgery, which lasted 10 hours, was an emergency procedure prompted by an aortic dissection, or a tearing apart of the layers of the aorta's wall. This can lead to death very quickly if not immediately addressed.
"Talk about luck—I was two miles from Cedars-Sinai when I discovered the symptoms," Jeremy said. "So I drove myself to the emergency room. What's funny is that CNN called me a badass for driving myself to the hospital. Now the thing is, it is hereditary, however if you get your blood pressure checked all the time, make sure it stays down, you can probably avoid this from happening.
"It was misdiagnosed years ago as a massive heart attack," he continued. "That's not what it is. It had nothing to do with the heart, my heart is in great shape. It's the aorta, that's the problem. So if I had just monitored it more, I might not have had the problem. And I'm pissed off at myself, because it's the simplest thing in the world."
Jeremy said his recovery from the near-death experience was fairly uncommon. "George C. Scott, Albert Einstein, Lucille Ball and John Ritter are just some of the names of those who did not make it. It's 95 percent mortality for those people who don't get to the doctor fast enough. You can literally die in minutes."
He explained that Life After the Buffet portrays how he's had to "change some of my eating habits, some of the staying out late. I'm living my life as I always have, but there are some adjustments. I have to take the losing weight seriously. I never took blood pressure medicine, because I was always afraid that it would affect the schmekel. So I want to be the poster child of taking your goddamn, fucking blood pressure. It's gonna save your goddamn life. If I knew this was on its way and that I had this problem—I would have assumed my blood pressure was high, but I would have taken the damn pills and let my boner have trouble here and there."
Another message Jeremy hopes people will carry away from the movie is the benefit his experience illustrates to avoiding drugs and unnecessary surgery.
"I came out of everything surprisingly better than the doctors thought I would," he said. "They said I have very strong kidneys, good liver, good lungs and a really good heart, and I attribute this to never touching drugs. Because when you take lots and lots of drugs, these things are not that important. Like I used to know girls that took penicillin and tetracycline for their skin to clear up, to get rid of acne, and sure it worked, but then what happens when you really need those drugs to fight something serious? And you look at the girls today who get their boobies done, and I'm so much against that, and now they're getting their rear ends done; you don't ever want to get a surgery ever—now with staph infections and MRSA and other things that are out there, you could get a great operation, your tits look great, then you die because the toxins go into your body—so you don't ever get surgery unless it's absolutely necessary. The fact that people will do that, go for an operation for things like boobies and tushies is so crazy."
Jeremy also gave credit to his wholesome upbringing for laying the groundwork that ultimately helped him overcome this medical crisis.
"I really do owe great parenting," he said. "In my autobiography [Ron Jeremy: The Hardest (Working) Man in Showbiz from Harper Entertainment], I say in the very beginning of the book that I dedicate it to my role models, my mom and dad, who raised three kids who never smoked a cigarette, other than smoking a little pot in college, who never did any kind of drugs of any sort, barely drink, and all went through four years of college for master's degrees—me for special ed, my sister for theater and my brother went to Harvard. So we were born and raised to not do drugs, and we never did. I really thank them for that. If I had a cocaine problem like a lot of my friends had, or other drugs, this would have taken me off the planet easily."
Ron Jeremy: Life After the Buffet includes appearances from adult star Teri Weigel, "Porn Pastor" Craig Gross, Dr. Hillel Laks of UCLA Medical Center, Jeremy's agent Mike Esterman, and more. The movie will be available starting May 5 on iTunes, Amazon Instant, Vudu, Google Play, Xbox and Vubiquity.
See the trailer here.
