Jason LaVeris/FilmMagic Dr. Dre
Dr. Dre is opening up about the severity of his illness when he was hospitalized for a brain aneurysm last year.
While speaking on the Workout the Doubt podcast earlier this month, the music producer shared details from his stay at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, where he was reportedly taken to the intensive care unit via an ambulance in January 2021.
Since the incident occurred during the onset of the pandemic, Dre, 57, told the podcast host Dolvett Quince that he was not allowed to receive any visitors.
Johnny Nunez/WireImage Dr. Dre
“But they allowed my family to come in,” he explained. “I found out later, they called them up, so they could say their last goodbyes because [doctors] thought I was out of here.”
“I didn’t know it was that serious, you know? I am seeing my mom, my sister, and everybody come into the room,” Dre continued. “Nobody told me. I had no idea. That was crazy.”
Noting that he was in the ICU for two weeks, Dre added, “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 sobriety tests, like touch your nose, rub your heel on your calf and all that….”
“As soon as they leave, I would try to go to sleep because I knew they would be coming back in the next hour,” he said.
Despite everything that was going on, he shared he “never felt like I was in trouble.”
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“I felt like, ‘Okay, I am just going through procedure. I am ready to go home. I am hungry,’ I didn’t eat for two weeks. That was a really crazy experience,” he said.
Soon after he was hospitalized, Dre wrote an update about his health to his fans on Instagram, saying that he was “doing great and getting excellent care.”
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Dre rose to fame as part of the iconic rap group N.W.A. but left in 1991 to become a solo artist. He then later transitioned to become one of hip hop’s greatest producers, working with artists including Tupac Shakur, Snoop Dogg, The Game and Kendrick Lamar.
Dre later joined forces with record company executive Jimmy Iovine in 2006 to launch the audio products company Beats by Dr. Dre. In 2014, Apple purchased the brand for $3 billion.
