Jeremih says he isn’t taking another second for granted after his near-death experience with COVID-19.

The 33-year-old singer, whose real name is Jeremy Phillip Felton, opened up on Tuesday about his hospitalization on Sway In The Morning. 

“I’m a living, walking testimony,” said Felton upon stressing the reality of COVID-19. “What I can say is, man, it definitely is real.”

The “Don’t Tell ’em” rapper said that his health quickly spiraled after contracting the virus and that he was rushed to the hospital, prompting calls for prayers from the music industry.

“I was really down bad for the last month, month and a half while I was in there. You know, I don’t even remember the day I went in. That’s how messed up I was,” the Grammy nominee said. “I had the tube down my throat for about a week and a half.”

Beyond not being able to remember anything about his time in the ICU, Felton revealed, “I woke up about two times and all I remember is just seeing a white light.”

He was also diagnosed with a rare side-effect of COVID-19, multisystem inflammatory syndrome (MIS,) which Mayo Clinic says causes swelling of the organs and blood vessels.

“My whole insides, all my organs became inflamed,” described Felton. “My heart went out, stopped beating and started beating irregularly, and my kidneys went out. My liver started to fail.”

The artist says his battle wasn’t over after he survived COVID-19, revealing that the illness robbed him of being able to perform basic functions.

“I had to learn how to walk again, eat, all that stuff,” said Felton, who says the incident left him humbled. “I look at it as kind of somewhat of a blessing…I needed to sit down.”

By Megan Stone
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