Dustin Hoffman recalls gunpoint encounter in his youth

Dustin Hoffman has recalled that he feared he would be killed when the husband of a married woman he was seeing entered her home with a gun and ordered him to leave. The 89-year-old actor described the encounter during an appearance on the Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend podcast, saying it happened when he was young.

Hoffman said the woman believed her husband would remain asleep after going to bed and invited him over. The two were together when the husband walked in carrying a gun, Hoffman recalled. He said the man pointed it at him and told him to get out.

Hoffman described the gun as appearing larger when it was aimed at him and said the husband’s finger was on the trigger. He recalled thinking that he could die at any moment and said he would do anything to avoid being killed.

The account is Hoffman’s recollection on the podcast. The reports repeating it trace back to that appearance and do not independently corroborate the encounter. They do not identify the woman or her husband, or give a date or location for the incident. One report said Hoffman walked away unscathed, but the podcast retellings otherwise focus on his description of the confrontation.