Star Jones. Astrid Stawiarz/Getty Images for The American Heart Association
Star Jones is reflecting on her “no joke” open-heart surgery 14 years later.
“They opened up my chest, cracked it and disconnected my heart for 22 minutes,” Jones, 62, said on the Tuesday, February 18, episode of the Tamron Hall Show. “But as you know I say, ‘They put it back in so don’t trip.’”
“Heart disease is still the number one killer of women. It’s still the number one killer of Americans, still the number one killer of African Americans. Beats all forms of cancer combined,” she continued. “And this is my mission in life, you know? This is why I wake up in the morning: to say to women, ‘Take care of yourself. Put yourself on the front burner. It is important for you.’”
When host Tamron Hall noted that Jones previously “ignored” her body, she replied, “100 percent.”
Loni Love updated her followers on her health — and got candid about her doctor’s orders. “When was your last physical?” Love, 52, asked fans via Instagram on Thursday, September 21, alongside a photo of her at the doctor’s office. “Doc says my heart is good and then he says what he always says … […]
“I was morbidly obese and obese for the vast majority of my adult life. So when I was short of breath or my legs hurt or I would get dizzy, I attributed that to the weight,” she said. “So then, after having weight loss surgery, after having done therapy, after having changed my eating habits, started exercising, I should have felt better. But I didn’t feel better.”
The former View cohost said she avoided “dealing with it” and thought it was “residual weight” until receiving her heart disease diagnosis. Now, Jones is raising awareness.
“If I’m the one who brings the news to people and I didn’t know, this is my job to tell everybody else,” she said.
While reflecting on her health journey, Jones recalled what the most surprising response has been from women. “The same thing that I said: ‘I should’ve known,’” Jones told Hall, 54. “I mean literally, those are the words that I say and I continue to say them every day. We should know when our body is not feeling right.”
When asked by Hall why people “trick” themselves into “denying” it, Jones replied, “Because you a mama, you a wife, you a sister. You worry about everybody else.” While noting that she’s aware of her husband and son’s health appointments, Jones said, “women don’t do that for ourselves.”
“We will literally be lying on the floor … about to have a heart attack, and we will say, ‘You can’t come into my house Mr. 911 because it’s not clean and I haven’t done the dishes,’” Jones said. “So we do need to start to focus on our own health and stop just putting other people first when it comes to your health. That’s my message.”
Leave a Reply