T.D. Jakes reveals the cause of his major health incident on The Today Show

The “right side of my heart had completely stopped getting blood at all,” the senior pastor of The Potter’s House said.

By: Adrian Ashford

Dallas megachurch pastor Bishop T.D. Jakes said Wednesday that the health incident he suffered at his church last November was a “massive” heart attack.

The Potter’s House pastor’s statement came in an interview with The Today Show.

“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,’ ” Jakes told The Today Show.

“The reason I didn’t realize it was because I had none of the symptoms that they say,” Jakes said about the heart attack. “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…”

The “right side of my heart had completely stopped getting blood at all,” Jakes said. “I was preaching with half of my heart closed.”

When reached for comment Wednesday, a spokesperson for The Potter’s House said she did not anticipate that the church would have more information to share.

In the Today Show interview, Jakes also thanked people for praying for him. “My whole church — I mean global, not just the congregation, even people who didn’t go to my church — people everywhere sending in prayers, I’m so thankful, and I want to use this opportunity to thank them,” he said.

During the interview on video, Jakes also discussed the allegations of attempted sexual assault made against him by two brothers whom Jakes is suing for defamation.

“We’re living in a time of misinformation and disinformation; it’s hard to live with,” the pastor said, responding to a question about the defamation lawsuit he filed the day after his health incident. “Some people don’t see you as an individual. They see you as an opportunity.”

Last year, during a November service at his church, Jakes began to shake after finishing a prayer and was quickly surrounded on stage by men in suits as shouts could be heard from the congregation.

The Potter’s House had not explained what caused the health scare, though Jakes said on social media in November that it was not a stroke. In a service a week after the incident, Jakes appeared in a livestreamed video and said he “feels good and is in no pain.”

“Many of you don’t realize that you’re looking at a miracle,” he said in the video. “I faced a life-threatening calamity, was rushed to the ICU unit; I had emergency surgery. I survived the surgery. I’m back.”

At a New Year’s Eve service at The Potter’s House, Jakes began his hourlong sermon by talking more about the health scare. “If all the odds have been against you, and if they couldn’t hardly get a pulse on you, and if you couldn’t hardly recognize anybody and everybody said you weren’t gonna make it, I’m standing here as a testimony,” he said.

Adrian Ashford covers faith and religion in North Texas for The Dallas Morning News through a partnership with Report for America.