Jeremih Details Near-Death Experience With COVID-19: 'I Saw A White Light'

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Jeremih is opening up about his battle with COVID-19. During a joint interview with Chance The Rapper on SiriusXM on Tuesday (December 15), the Chicago singer referred to himself as a “living, walking testimony” and revealed he had to learn how to walk again, suffered memory loss, and more.

“I was really down bad for the last month and a half that I was in there,” he explained in regards to his time inside of Chicago’s Northwestern Hospital. “I don’t even remember the day I went in there. That’s how messed up I was.”

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The singer’s mother, Gwenda Starling, was initially kept from seeing her son at the hospital due to COVID-19 restrictions but was later allowed after Chance intervened. Starling helped her son get a sense of his condition after she showed him photos of him while he was in the ICU.

“I had a tube down my throat for about a week and a half,” he said. “I was really like in a dream, I woke up two times, and all I remember seeing is a white light.”

He also developed “multiple inflammatory syndromes,” considered to be a “rare cause and effect” of the disease. “All my organs became inflamed. My heart started beating irregularly, my kidneys went out, my liver started to go bad. Mind you, I didn’t know what was going on at the time. I was out,” he said.

He added, “Once I was removed from ICU after that week and a half I was going through recovery where I had to learn how to walk again, eat, all that stuff. Mind you, I’ve never been to a hospital in my entire life — not for a broken bone, not for nothing. So just to be in there I look at it as a blessing. As crazy as it might sound, I needed to sit down. I needed to take a break.”

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The 33-year-old platinum artist understood while he hadn’t taken a break in the last 13 years of his career, whether it be songwriting or performing, he wasn’t going to burn himself out.

“It’s been one long party, I ain’t gon’ lie to you,” he said. A lot of things now I don’t take for granted. Sometimes you have to have a setback for the big payback. Whatever I’ve done before now I’m going to do it to the 10th power because it’s a reason why I’m still here. I got my voice again, learned how to walk again, now I gotta learn how to run and bust a move like [Chris Brown].”

The singer will be staying at his mother’s house for the rest of 2020. He and Chance released their Merry Christmas Lil’ Mama project to streaming services on December 11. Listen to his full interview in regards to COVID below.