“Jaws” icon Richard Dreyfuss was forced to drop out of this weekend’s SharkCon in Tampa, Fla., after he was diagnosed with viral bronchitis.
Dreyfuss delivered the news of his diagnosis and his exit in a video post shared to the SharkCon Instagram on Saturday.
He said, “Hello, fellow cons. I am very, very sorry to tell you that I’ve been diagnosed with viral…viral…What is it?”
His wife, Svetlana Erokhin, then clarified off-screen that Dreyfuss had been infected with viral bronchitis.
Dreyfuss continued, “I’ve been told by my doctors I cannot fly, and I would have to fly five hours to get [to SharkCon]. I’m terribly sorry because I had planned to be there and had been looking forward to it. But I’m unable to do so. I don’t want to get anyone else sick, and I don’t want to get sicker myself. I feel terrible about not showing up, and I feel worse about exposing you to this, apparently, very viral illness.”
Dreyfuss headlined Steven Spielberg’s 1975 horror masterpiece alongside Roy Scheider and Robert Shaw. In “Jaws,” the Oscar-winner played Matt Hooper, a wisecracking oceanologist and shark expert tasked with helping Chief Brody track down the vicious man-eater.
The “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” star made waves during another public appearance at a “Jaws” retrospective screening in 2024. At the post-screening Q&A, Dreyfuss made controversial comments about the Oscars’ new diversity requirements, trans people and the MeToo movement. The executive director of the event, J. Casey Soward, issued a statement in the fallout, apologizing for his remarks.
