Dr. Dre Says He Had Three Strokes After 2021 Brain Aneurysm

Lexy Perez
·3 min read
  • Oops!
    Something went wrong.
    Please try again later.

Dr. Dre is looking back on his 2021 brain aneurysm.

In an interview on SiriusXM’s This Life of Mine with James Corden, the music hip-hop mogul recalled having “three strokes” while in the hospital for his brain aneurysm in 2021.

More from The Hollywood Reporter

At the time of his hospitalization, he told The Hollywood Reporter in a statement, “I’m 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.”

When reflecting on the frightening ordeal, Dre further revealed to Corden, “It’s just something that you can’t control that just happens and during those two weeks, I had three strokes.”

When detailing what led to the trip to the hospital initially, Dre recalled waking up with a feeling behind his right ear that turned into “the worst pain.”

“I got up and I went on about my day, and I thought that I could just lay down and take a nap. My son had a female friend that was there and was like, ‘No, we need to take you to the hospital,'” he said. “So they took me to urgent care.” He was soon told it was “serious.”

“Next thing you know, I’m blacking out. I’m in and out of consciousness, and I ended up in the ICU. I was there for two weeks. I’m hearing the doctors coming in and saying, ‘You don’t know how lucky you are.'”

After asking the doctors what he could’ve done to prevent the aneurysm, Dre said, “Nobody could give me an answer. I had no idea that I had high blood pressure or anything like that because I’m on my health shit. I’m lifting weights, I’m running, I’m doing everything I can to keep myself healthy.”

“High blood pressure in Black men, that’s just what it is. They call it the silent killer,” he continued. “You just have no idea, so you know, you have to keep your shit checked.”

Though he isn’t sure whether that health scare made a “significant change” in his life, Dre said the ordeal “definitely makes you appreciate being alive that’s for sure.”

“It’s crazy, so now knowing that I had no control over that. It’s just something that could happen out of the blue. You wake up and you go, ‘Shit. OK, I’m here.'”

Dre has been candid about his experience before, telling Dolvett Quince’s Workout the Doubt podcast in 2022 that doctors thought he might die.

“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.

Part of his treatment included having to be woken up every hour for testing which left him exhausted. “I didn’t eat for two weeks” and “as soon as they’d leave, I would try to go to sleep,” he said.

After being transported to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center on Jan. 4, 2021, Dre was eventually released on Jan. 16.

Best of The Hollywood Reporter