'Supernatural' alum Jared Padalecki recovering from 'very bad car accident,' Jensen Ackles reveals

Actor Jared Padalecki is currently recovering at home after "a very bad car accident," his Supernatural co-star Jensen Ackles revealed during a Q&A with fans at a New Jersey convention over the weekend.

"He wasn’t driving, he was in the passenger seat and he’s lucky to be alive," Ackles said, making it clear that Padalecki, who was supposed to be present at the event, had given him permission to share the unfortunate news. "Not only that, but he’s home recovering. The fact that he’s not even in a hospital right now is blowing my mind because I saw the car. There were no fatalities, but he’s recovering [and] he sends his love. That airbag packs a punch and he’s like, ‘I feel like I went 12 rounds with [Mike] Tyson.' But he’s doing ok and he’s moving around. Just keep him in your thoughts, send him some love, give him a chance on social, and he’ll be back with us soon." 

Ackles lightened the tension with a little joke at his buddy's expense: "He’ll be back, messing up mike stands before you know it. It’ll be great." Padalecki is currently the star of another CW series — Walker (a modern day reboot of Walker, Texas Ranger) — which was recently renewed for a third season by the network.

He and Ackles became household names by playing brothers Sam and Dean Winchester across 15 seasons of Supernatural. Created by Eric Kripke (Timeless, The Boys), the long-running show aired its final episode in late 2020. A '70s-set prequel centered around Sam and Dean's parents is currently in development with Ackles serving as narrator and executive producer.

"If you think about it, there's not a lot of canon that was established on the 'mothership,' as we call it, but there was enough," Ackles said of the prequel, which led to a small misunderstanding with Padalecki last summer. "It was kind of glossed over, a lot of how Mary met John and how that whole situation happened. But the points that were made on Supernatural are kind of like our waypoints. We'll hit those, but we'll hit them in a way that maybe we didn't expect. It's going back to the late great Kim Manners. In directing Supernatural, he was like, 'Listen, we gotta give them what they want in a way they won't expect it.' That's our mantra with this. We're gonna hit those points and we're gonna make sure that we touch those and that those are tentpoles of what the story is, but we get to fill in the gap[s] and we get to do it in a way that is entertaining [and] also services the lore that is Supernatural."

Meg Donnelly (High School Musical: The Musical - The Series) and Drake Rodger (The In Between) have been cast as Mary Campbell and John Winchester, respectively.