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Dr. Dre says doctors thought he was going to die after he had a brain aneurysm in 2021.
In a recent appearance on Dolvett Quince’s Workout the Doubt podcast, the rapper and music producer shared a few details about his two-week experience in the intensive care unit of an L.A. hospital.
“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. I found out later, they called them up so they could say their last goodbyes because they thought I was outta here,” he recalled.
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Dre said that he wasn’t made of the severity of his condition and called the experience of seeing his entire family surrounding him while he lay in the hospital bed “crazy.”
He went on to describe part of his treatment, which included having to be woken up every hour. “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 a nose, rub your heel on your calf,” he explained.
He added that the process left him hungry and extremely exhausted, noting that “I didn’t eat for two weeks” and “as soon as they’d leave, I would try to go to sleep.”
Still, he said he “never felt like I was in trouble” despite the seriousness of the medical event. “I felt like OK, I’m just going through the procedure and I’m ready to go home,” he said. “Some might say I came out a bit stronger than ever before.”
Dre was transported to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center for a brain aneurysm on Jan. 4, 2021, and by Jan. 16, the music hip-hop mogul had been released.
At the time of his hospitalization, the musician told The Hollywood Reporter in a statement, “Im doing great and getting excellent care from my medical team. I will be out of the hospital and back home soon. Shout out to all the great medical professionals at Cedars.”
In an interview with The Los Angeles Times in June of the same year, Dre said he had always been someone who took care of himself healthwise — including never having high blood pressure — which was why the experience was “a really weird thing.”
“There’s something that happens for some reason with Black men and high blood pressure, and I never saw that coming,” he said. “But I’m taking care of myself. And I think every Black man should just check that out and make sure things are OK with the blood pressure.”
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