How Jimmy Buffett Once Saved Colin Jost from Drowning After a Surfing Mishap

The late Jimmy Buffett was not only a singer, songwriter and entrepreneur. He was a hero – at least if you ask Colin Jost.

The Saturday night live star was once rescued from a surfing accident by the “Margaritaville” singer, who died Sept. 1 at age 76, four years after being diagnosed with Merkel cell carcinoma.

In the story he told in his 2020 memoir A very striking face, Jost revealed that Buffett saved him after he nearly drowned while surfing in St. Bart in 2014.

The comedian, 41, said he and journalist Carmel Lobello, his girlfriend at the time, were spending New Year’s at a villa on a Caribbean island when he sat next to Buffett at dinner one night.

Although Jost explained that he was a big fan of Buffett’s restaurants in Margaritaville, he didn’t immediately recognize Buffett, and it wasn’t until the star mentioned his famous restaurant that things took off.

Jost and Buffett hit it off over dinner, and Buffett invited the comedian to join him on the beach the next day to ride the waves, Jost wrote in his book. When he arrived at the secluded beach, he found Buffett ready to leave with his children by his side.

Jimmy Buffett attends the New York premiere of his jukebox musical “Escape to Margaritaville” in 2018.

Bruce Glikas/Bruce Glikas/FilmMagic

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Although Jost described himself as a “decent” surfer, Buffett did offer some advice, namely to be careful to avoid rocks that are close to shore.

“I remember acting nonchalant and saying, ‘Oh yeah. Rocks. haha Totally,’” Jost wrote in the book. “And then I immediately forgot what he just told me.”

The comedian said he went into the water and started riding waves between three and four feet high. While Buffett hung out with his family, Jost rode the wave. But when he jumped off his board, he quickly realized he was stuck, his leash caught under the rocks Buffett had warned him about.

Although the singer reached out to ask if Jost was okay, the star said he hoped he could leave the situation behind without having to make a fool of himself in front of Buffett.

Jimmy Buffett performs in New Orleans in 2022.

Tim Mosenfelder/WireImage

“Luckily, Jimmy Buffett can spot an idiot from fifty feet away,” he wrote. “He starts paddling to see what’s going on, then looks horrified when he sees me pinned to the rocks by my own leash. ‘What are you doing?! I told you about the rocks!’”

Jost wrote that his mouth was full of seawater at the time, he was struggling to tread water and he was bleeding after cutting his foot on a rock — so in came Buffett, who saved the day by cutting the leash off Jost’s surfboard. knife.

“I unhook the leash and swim back through the waves with my bloody leg, and Jimmy Buffett is waiting out in the waves with my surfboard, and I apologize profusely for interrupting his family vacation, but also for destroying his leash and forcing a seventy-one-year-old man to endanger own life to save mine,” he wrote. “Jimmy hands me the board and points to a gentler part of the waves on the right and says, ‘That might be faster than your speed there’.”

Buffett was an avid surfer until his later years; in January he texted friend and surfing legend Kelly Slater that he was returning to St. Bart now that he is “in shape to surf”.

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“We’ve had great waves here all month and I got a few big ones (for myself) on my 76th birthday morning,” he wrote to Slater, who shared a screenshot of the text on Instagram. “Don’t let the old man in.”

In a touching dedication, Slater (51) wrote that he first met Buffett in France in 2010, about eight years after he lost his father Stephen, and that the musician soon became a father figure to him.

“On the first day, I told him how much he reminded me of my own father, and from that moment he became a kind of surrogate for me, occasionally calling me from some distant country, telling me that he missed me and that I had to visit him. wherever he was,” Slater wrote. “He told me that life is too short not to take advantage of every good opportunity that comes along and go live.”

Buffett’s family announced his death on Saturday, sharing that he died at home in Sag Harbor, New York, surrounded by his family, friends, music and dogs.

“He lived his life like a song until his last breath and will be greatly missed by many,” the statement said.

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Source: HIS Education