He’s a survivor. Kevin Smith nearly died from a major heart attack, the filmmaker revealed on Monday, February 26.
“After the first show this evening, I had a massive heart attack,” 47-year-old Smith tweeted in the early hours of Monday. He also shared a photo of himself in a hospital bed, hooked up to various tubes.
“The Doctor who saved my life told me I had 100% blockage of my LAD artery (aka ‘the Widow-Maker’),” he explained. “If I hadn’t canceled show 2 go to the hospital, I would’ve died. But for now, I’m still above ground!”
The “widowmaker” heart attack occurs when the left anterior descending artery, which is one of the main arteries providing blood to the heart, “suddenly goes from 80 percent or 90 percent narrowed to 100 percent narrowed,” Dr. Richard Katz told Time magazine earlier this month.
In a separate Instagram post the same day, Smith went into detail about his experience. “After the first show, I felt kind of nauseous. I threw up a little bit it didn’t seem to help. Then I started sweating buckets and my chest felt heavy. Turns out I had a massive heart attack,” he explained. “But this is what I learned about myself during this crisis: death was always the thing I was most terrified in life. When the time came, I never imagined I’d ever be able to die with dignity – I assumed I’d die screaming, like my Dad (who lost his life to a massive heart attack).”
The Comic Book Men star also reflected on his life and successes. “I’ve had a weird, wonderful career in all sorts of media, amazing friends, the best wife in the world and an incredible daughter who made me a Dad,” he wrote. “But as I stared into the infinite, I realized I was relatively content. … But the point of this post is to tell you that I faced my greatest fear tonight… and it wasn’t as bad as I’ve always imagined it’d be. I don’t want my life to end but if it ends, I can’t complain. It was such a gift.”
Smith — known for playing Silent Bob in his View ASkewniverse of films, which includes Clerks, Mallrats, Chasing Amy and more — had been filming Kevin Smith Live!, his new standup special in Glendale, California, on Sunday night. He had a 6 p.m. show as well as a 9 p.m. show.
Earlier on Sunday, he had posted to Facebook about his comedy show. “Your pity laughter will be like sponges to my flop sweat!” he joked.
Smith is the latest celebrity to suffer from a widowmaker heart attack. Rosie O’Donnell revealed in a 2012 poem that she had suffered the same. Biggest Loser trainer Bob Harper also suffered a near-fatal heart attack in February 2017 and collapsed at the gym. “I had what was called a ‘widow maker,’” he told IPRESSTV in January 2018. “The kind of heart attack I had was just like, boom. Lights out.”
