Toni Braxton is opening up about her health after preventing a severe heart attack last year.
The “Un-Break My Heart” singer, who has been vocal about living with lupus, appeared on “Today” on Tuesday and revealed that she experienced a health scare following the death of her sister Traci Braxton in 2022.
“But I was having this pain in my chest and I thought it was because I was so sad, we had just lost one of my sisters,” she said.
Braxton told “Today” co-hosts Hoda Kotb and Jenna Bush Hager that she kept putting off an appointment with her doctor, confident that the chest pains were nothing serious.
After the singer postponed her checkups, she said she finally made it to the doctor’s office where she learned that she “would have had a massive heart attack. I would not have survived.”
According to Braxton, she almost suffered a widowmaker heart attack, which is when the heart’s main artery gets nearly or fully blocked. Braxton said she received a coronary stent after the health scare.
“Even sometimes when I talk about it, I get a little emotional about it,” she said, holding back tears, “because I feel so fortunate and so blessed. And I was not going to go to that appointment.”
The singer announced Tuesday that she is partnering with Aurinia Pharmaceuticals to encourage people living with lupus nephritis to get tested regularly for kidney damage. Lupus nephritis is a type of kidney diseased caused by systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE). According to the Mayo Clinic, SLE is a common type of lupus.
“If I had not done that appointment, I would not be here today talking to you guys,” she told Kotb and Bush Hager. “So I want to educate people about that.”
Later in the conversation, Braxton said that her SLE is “starting to affect my kidneys,” which she says “can get really scary.” Braxton said she tries to “think of the glass half full.”
She told the hosts about coping with her condition, finding support in family and friends, performing to the best of her ability and staying confident on social media.
“I was feeling good about myself surviving lupus,” she said of a picture from a recent Instagram post. “I wanted people to know that just because you have lupus or lupus nephritis or your kidneys aren’t doing good, you can still be cute, you can take a cute picture and feel OK.”
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