Dr. Dre has opened up about his recent health struggles and what he learned from being in “the worst pain [he] ever felt.”
During an interview with James Corden on SiriusXM’s This Life of Mine that went live on Thursday (March 14), the N.W.A veteran reflected on negotiating a brain aneurysm back in 2021.
“It definitely makes you appreciate being alive, that’s for sure. It’s something you can’t control, it just happens. During those two weeks, I had three strokes,” he said before admitting that he didn’t act on the symptoms with urgency at first.
He continued: “I got up and went about my day, and I thought I could lay down and take a nap. My son and a female friend were like, ‘No, we need to take you to the hospital.’ Next thing you know, I’m blacking out, I’m in and out of consciousness and I end up in the ICU.
“I was there for two weeks. I’m hearing doctors come in [and saying] ‘You don’t know how lucky you are.’ I asked questions about what I could’ve done to prevent this, no one could give me an answer.”
Back in 2022, the Los Angeles legend talked about his condition and revealed that doctors thought he was going to die due to the aneurysm.
Speaking to fitness entrepreneur Dolvett Quince on his Workout the Doubt podcast, the Hip Hop mogul explained how medical professionals invited his loved ones to the hospital to say their goodbyes after fearing he’d lose his life.
“I’m at Cedars Sinai hospital and they weren’t allowing anybody to come up, meaning visitors or family or anything like that, because of COVID, but they allowed my family to come in,” he began. “I found out later, they called them up so they could say their last goodbyes because they thought I was outta here.”
He added: “I didn’t know it was that serious, you know? Seeing my mom and my sister and everybody coming in the room. Nobody told me, I had no idea. That was crazy.”
He then described how doctors had to wake him up every hour to make sure his brain was functioning properly.
“So I’m in the ICU for two weeks,” he explained. “Because of what was going on in my brain, they had to wake me up every hour on the hour for two weeks to do these tests. Basically looking like sobriety tests, like touch your nose, rub your heel on your calf and all that shit.
“So every hour for two weeks, I had to wake up and do that. [I was] tired. As soon as they’d leave I would try to go to sleep because I knew they’d be coming back in the next hour.”
