Dustin Hoffman has revealed that he once feared for his life after being held at gunpoint by the husband of a woman he was having an affair with. The 89-year-old actor, who has been married twice, shared the story during a recent appearance on the podcast Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend.
Recalling the Terrifying Encounter
Hoffman explained that in his youth he was involved with a married woman who believed her husband stayed asleep once he went to bed. He was invited to her home after the husband had fallen asleep.
"And there we are having a festival of sorts and he walked in with a gun. And he pointed at me. And he said, 'Get out, get out'," Hoffman recounted.
Describing the moment the gun was aimed at him, he said: "When you have a gun pointed at you, first of all, that hole is much bigger than the actual hole. And you realise how, any second, he's going to pull that trigger. And you think and you realise, I'm gonna die the next second. You will do anything to avoid getting killed."
When asked whether he and the unidentified woman continued their encounter after the husband's intervention, Hoffman simply replied: "No."
Marriage and Family Life
Hoffman has been married to his second wife, Lisa, since 1980. He was previously married to Anna Byrne, with whom he shares two children, and he has four children with Lisa.
According to multiple sources, Hoffman previously said about maintaining a successful marriage: "To have a successful marriage, a man must, on a fundamental level be scared s***less of his wife."
In 2016, Lisa spoke about their relationship, telling The Daily Telegraph: "We've been married 36 years and together 40 years. I say in Hollywood it is like dog years so you have to multiply that by seven. Maybe we are more in love [than when we got married]... it continues to grow."
Lisa, who is 17 years younger than Hoffman, first met the actor through a family connection, as his mother was friends with her grandmother. They reconnected at her grandfather's funeral, where she recalled feeling an immediate spark.
"My grandfather had recently passed away and Dustin came to pay his condolences," she said in 2007. "That first look and I knew... Dustin asked how many children I wanted. I said six, and he said he had two already, so would four be okay. And that's exactly the way it has played out."
Discussing how the couple managed raising their children alongside Hoffman's demanding career, Lisa told People Magazine: "One of the challenges that actors have is that they travel often for their jobs. Dustin and I made the decision immediately that we would stick together and no matter how challenging it was for our children or for us, we went everywhere with him, the whole group of us. We went with him to make his movies, from Morocco to Cincinnati, and I think it helped being together."
