Ray J says obeying docs’ orders is hard. Heart failure? Harder
Ray J is under doctor’s orders to stay on bed rest, take all his prescribed medications and avoid drinking alcohol or smoking because of his damaged heart.
The R&B singer, who revealed this week that his heart is pumping at far below capacity because of damage from his heavy use of alcohol and other substances, shared those directives with TMZ in an interview published Thursday. Doctors told him he likely has only months to live, with the former “Love & Hip-Hop: Hollywood” star predicting that he would die by 2027.
Doctors told Ray J — real name William Ray Norwood Jr. — that he should prepare for the chance that he might need a pacemaker or defibrillator soon, the singer told the celebrity site. He expects to get an update when he goes back in two weeks for a check-up.
The brother of actor-singer Brandy said that if he manages to survive his current health crisis, he expects to emerge a “stronger and a better person.”
Ray J told followers in a video posted Sunday that he wanted to “thank everyone for praying for me.”
“I was in the hospital,” he said. “My heart is only beating like 25%, but as long as I stay focused and stay on the right path, then everything will be all right.”
He said elsewhere that his heart was beating at 60%. The number likely refers to Ray J’s heart’s ejection fraction, which measures the volume of blood coming out of the heart’s left ventricle or being drawn into the right ventricle when the heart beats. Right-sided heart failure is far less common, according to WebMD.
The man who was with Kim Kardashian in her career-launching sex tape said in other video livestreams that the right side of his heart was “black. It’s like done.”
“I thought I could handle all the alcohol, I could handle all the Adderall,” he said. Now, he told TMZ, he’s been taking eight different drugs, including Lipitor, Jardiance and Entresto, and physicians’ warnings for him to avoid smoking and drinking are a challenge.
Doctors have told him he has only months to live, Ray J said in his recent livestreams, and he believes he won’t last past this calendar year.
He is 45.