Billy Porter says a poorly treated urinary infection nearly killed him.
On Wednesday, the 56-year-old Broadway icon appeared on “Today” to promote his new children’s book, “Songbird in the Light,” and discussed a recent health scare that’s given the actor a new outlook on life.
“I am on the road to complete recovery,” he said, tearing up. “It is a gift to be alive. It’s still emotional to talk about it.”
Last year, Porter crossed the pond and made his West End debut starring as the Emcee in the musical “Cabaret,” which ran Jan. 28 through May 24 at London’s Playhouse Theatre. The Tony-winning actor said he was having a ball and living his purpose, but then he got a urinary infection.
“The medicine in the U.K. is trash,” he told “Outlaws” podcast host TS Madison earlier this month. “Four rounds of antibiotics and 10 to 12 weeks later, it’s a kidney infection with kidney stones.”
Porter eventually thought the infection had cleared up and returned to New York, where last fall he was gearing up for a Broadway revival of the musical starring as the production’s first Black Emcee, but his history-making run was cut short.
“I go into rehearsals for ‘Cabaret’ on Broadway … and everything seems fine, and a month in, the kidney stone pain comes back,” he told Madison.
On a Tuesday in September, Porter checked himself into the hospital due to debilitating pain, and then the “Pose” star subsequently fell into a coma and woke up days later on a Saturday evening.
“They went in to do a routine check. They saw that the kidney stone was trapped in my urethra, and they went in to put a stent in, redirect the urine, blast me with real antibiotics — not U.K. antibiotics — and blow up the kidney stones. When they got in there, there was so much pus and bile and infection behind the stone, it bubbled up and I went uroseptic in minutes.”
“I was dead for three days,” Porter said.
Porter said he was placed on an ECMO (extracorporeal membrane oxygenation) machine, which, according to Mayo Clinic, pumps blood outside of the body to a heart-lung machine, removes carbon dioxide from the blood and sends oxygen-rich blood back to the body. It’s essentially a life-support system.
While Porter was in a coma, he said, one of his legs went into compartment syndrome, which happens when there’s too much pressure around your muscles, causing reduced blood and oxygen flow and possibly leading to necrosis. “They had to cut me open on either side of my leg while I was in a coma, from my knee to my hip, and leave it open for two days so they could save my leg,” he told Madison, visibly choked up over the ordeal.
Porter told “Today” that the experience was mind-altering yet also inspiring. “My work here on this earth is not done, and that gives me hope.”
His new children’s book, “Songbird in the Light,” which follows a young boy who grapples with bullying while learning to embrace his talent and love himself, hit bookshop shelves this week.
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