Photo Credit: Jeremih/Instagram
We’ve heard of all types of COVID stories all this year but none, at least in the celebrity realm seem to match R&B singer Jeremih. To start, he’s 33 and the age that most say is safe for COVID where you should be able to shake it off and keep moving. That’s not the case for him.
In an interview alongside Chance the Rapper promoting their Merry Christmas Little Mama project on Sway in the Morning, Jeremih spoke about how debilitating having COVID was for him. He said he was a “living, walking testimony” While at Chicago’s Northwestern Hospital he said “I was really down bad for the last month and a half that I was in there.” He went on to say “I don’t even remember the day I went in there that’s how messed up I was.”
Jeremih’s mother Gwenda Starling wasn’t allowed to see him in ICU due to COVID restrictions he said but pointed out Chance the Rapper was able to get her in. He said he didn’t even know how he got there or even remembers much from the first day saying, “I had a tube down my throat for about a week and a half. I was really like in a dream, I woke up two times and all I remember seeing is a white light.” He said he even experienced organ failure.
Developing “multiple inflammatory syndrome,” Jeremih said, which is 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 gong on at the time. I was out. 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.”
What this entire ordeal did was make him more appreciative of life, pointing out how he’s not had any breaks essentially since becoming an adult. “It’s been one long party, I ain’t gon’ lie to you. A lot of things now I don’t take for granted. Sometimes you have to have a setback for the big payback.” Finding new motivation he said, “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,” he said before joking, “I got my voice again, learned how to walk again, now I gotta learn how to run and bust a move like [Chris Brown].”
