Al Pacino Says He Was Once Nearly Kidnapped by Female Fan Who Offered Him a Ride Home: 'This Ain't Happening to Me'

Mar. 15, 2025

Al Pacino at the 96th Academy Awards in Los Angeles on March 10, 2024.Photo:Chelsea Lauren/BEI/Shutterstock

Chelsea Lauren/BEI/Shutterstock

Al Pacinonarrowly escaped a kidnapping early in his career.

In his newly released memoir,Sonny Boy, the 84-year-oldOscarwinner recalled going out for drinks withGene Hackman’s brother, Richard Hackman, “somewhere in our cross-­country journey,” when he encountered a woman who almost caused him to jump out of her car.

According to Pacino, he “got so drunk that I could not find my way home.” But then, “a woman said to me, ‘Oh, I’ll drive you home.’ And without a second thought, I got into her car with her.”

“But as we drove, even in my daze, I could recognize that she was not taking me back to where I was staying,” the actor recalled in his book. “I said to her, ‘What is going on here?’ And she said straight out, ‘I’m kidnapping you.’ "

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Al Pacino circa the 1980s.MediaPunch/Shutterstock

MediaPunch/Shutterstock

“I am from the South Bronx. When I see some crazy person trying to do something to me, I know how to escape,” he wrote. “I said, ‘No, you’re not. I’m getting out.’ She said, ‘No, no,’ and she kept driving.”

And in an effort to make his point, “I opened the door as if to jump out of the car,” Pacino said. “I was a little drunk, but I was ready to leap from a moving car if I had to. This ain’t happening to me, man.”

Fortunately, he didn’t have to resort to jumping from a moving vehicle, as “she closed the door and took me home.”

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Cover of Al Pacino’s memoirSonny Boy(2024).Penguin Press

Penguin Press

InSonny Boy, Pacino, who isa father of four, also reflected on why he never married, saying he “always shied away from” it.

“I guess I didn’t see how it would help anything,” he wrote. “I just wanted to avoid what I thought, at the time, was the inevitable: an entrance to the pain train.”

The actor recently told PEOPLE he “just didn’t feel [marriage] ever suited me for some reason.” Plus, a rep for Pacino said he and ex-girlfriendNoor Alfallah"are very good friends, have been for years, and are co-parents” to their 16-month-old son,Roman.

“It depends on who you are getting along with,” the actor said, when asked abouthis feelings toward marriagenow. “If you live together with someone … you have to have this communion. If you don’t, it’s almost an invasion. So I like to know that if I find a human that I can connect with.”

Sonny Boyis available now wherever books are sold.

source: people.com