The 84-year-old actor told The New York Times Magazine he was "gone" after falling unconscious while battling the virus in his home.
"I didn't have a pulse," he said.
"I had about six paramedics in that living room, and there were two doctors, and they had these outfits on that looked like they were from outer space or something," he said.
The Godfather star said he lost consciousness after feeling "unusually not good" as he contracted COVID at an unspecified time and said he had "never thought" about death beforehand.
"I didn't see the white light or anything. There's nothing there. I'd never thought about it in my life. But you know actors: It sounds good to say I died once. What is it when there's no more?"
Despite his brush with death, the Scarface actor says that his children - Julie, 34, twins Anton and Olivia, 23, as well as one-year-old Roman from his various relationships - are "consolation" and that he no longer finds discussing death to be "morbid" now that he is older.
"It's just the way it is.
"I didn't ask for it. Just comes, like a lot of things just come."
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