Bishop TD Jakes finally revealed the cause of the medical emergency he suffered mid-sermon in November 2024.
During an interview with Craig Melvin on “Today,” the pastor disclosed that he suffered from a massive heart attack.
“I didn’t really realize what was happening to me onstage until I got to the hospital in an ambulance and fussing that it happened onstage, by the way, because I didn’t want it to happen, and the doctor leaned over my ear and said, ‘You had a massive heart attack,’” he said on Wednesday’s show.
Jakes, 67, said he had “none of the symptoms that they say” usually occur before the medical emergency.
“No numbness, no sharp pain, no anything. I just kind of drifted off to sleep. I didn’t know what it was, but I almost died,” he explained.
“[The doctor] said five minutes later, I’d have been dead on arrival. The right side of my heart had completely stopped getting blood at all,” Jakes recalled to Melvin, 45.
While delivering his Nov. 24, 2024, sermon, Jakes dropped his microphone and fell silent. He then began involuntarily shaking in his seat before those around him rushed toward him to offer support.
The whole ordeal was caught on camera, as the senior pastor of The Potter’s House in Dallas livestreams his church services for those at home.
“As long as I was up preaching, I felt fine,” he told Melvin. “But when I sat down, the adrenaline dropped, and it exposed the fact that I was preaching with half of my heart closed through a clot. And they had to go get it.”
Jakes said it’s “hard” for him to look back at the video.
“They had to claw the microphone out of my hand. But in my mind, I was in a quiet, peaceful, serene, white-enveloped, cloud-enveloped space,” he recalled.
“I was on my way out. Afterwards, in retrospect, it was such a privilege to stand on the other side, to get a little glimpse of what it might be like, or at least what it was like in that moment for me. I think it was absolutely amazing.”
Despite the heart attack, Jakes said he has no plans of slowing down and is planning to start a new podcast in addition to forthcoming church events.
“No, I’m getting faster because one, I’m older. Two, I’m grateful. Three, I’ve got something to say,” he said.
