"Smoking killed me." Iconic director David Lynch is terminally ill

American film director David Lynch, the author of the cult TV series Twin Peaks and the films Mulholland Drive and Blue Velvet, announced that he is terminally ill: he was diagnosed with pulmonary emphysema due to long-term smoking.

"I have emphysema from smoking for a long time, and so I am housebound whether I like it or not. It is dangerous for me to get sick, even to catch a cold," the 78-year-old director said in an interview with Sight & Sound magazine, as quoted by The Guardian.

Emphysema is a chronic respiratory disease in which the air spaces located beyond the terminal bronchioles expand. As a result, the lungs swell, and a person begins to experience shortness of breath even with little physical exertion. One of the main causes of the disease is smoking*.

According to Lynch, smoking was his undoing: "Smoking was something I loved unconditionally, but in the end it was my undoing. It was part of my creative life: tobacco, the smell of it, the pleasure of a cigarette. There is nothing like it in this world, it is so beautiful. But it is also killing me, so I had to quit."

Lynch admitted that he is currently staying home because he is afraid of catching COVID-19 or another disease, which in his condition is fatal. He can only travel short distances now because the oxygen in his lungs is quickly running out. These conditions make it almost impossible for him to continue working in film, and if he does decide to return to directing, he will have to do it remotely, although he would "really not want to."

David Lynch is a cult figure in 20th-century cinema, winner of the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival and an honorary Oscar for his contribution to cinema. Among his most famous works, in addition to those already mentioned, are the films Lost Highway, The Straight Story, The Elephant Man, and Inland Empire.