The founder of the 80,000-member Potter’s House in Dallas, Texas, T.D. Jakes revealed that the “slight health incident” he suffered on stage while preaching on Nov. 24 was a heart attack, and he found himself in a “cloud-enveloped space” during the near-death experience.
“You know, I didn’t really realize what was happening to me on stage until I got to the hospital in an ambulance. And [I was] fussing that it happened on stage, by the way, because I didn’t want it to happen,” Jakes told NBC’s Craig Melvin on the “Today” show Wednesday.
“The doctor leaned over in my ear and said, ‘You had a massive heart attack.’ And the reason I didn’t realize it is I had no symptoms that they say: 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,” Jakes added.
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The megachurch pastor previously shared details from the event during his emotional return to his pulpit on New Year’s Eve, suggesting he had trouble with his heart but stopped short of saying he had a heart attack. On Wednesday, however, he was more explicit.
“He [the doctor] said five minutes later, I would have been dead on arrival. The right side of my heart had completely stopped giving blood at all. As long as I was up preaching, I felt fine. When I sat down, the adrenaline dropped and exposed the fact I was preaching with half of my heart closed through a clot,” Jakes explained. “They had to go get it.”
Jakes suggested he may have gotten a glimpse of what the afterlife might be like for him during his near-death experience, and it was comforting.
“In my mind, I was in a quiet, peaceful, serene, white-enveloped, cloud-enveloped space,” he said. “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 that might be like … I think it was absolutely amazing.”
Jakes’ disclosure comes as he pursues a defamation lawsuit amid a wave of legal claims from several men alleging sexual assault and misconduct.
The most recent claim came from 57-year-old Timothy Anderson of Manatee County, Florida, who alleged in February that Jakes tried to kiss him in the 1990s while he worked as his youth pastor.
Anderson’s claim is part of a legal response filed on Feb. 21 by Duane Youngblood’s attorney, Tyrone A. Blackburn, in support of a motion seeking to dismiss the defamation lawsuit filed by Jakes over claims Youngblood made during interviews with internet personality Larry Reid on his “Larry Reid Live” show.
A week earlier, Jakes formally denied separate allegations he sexually assaulted Youngblood, now a registered sex offender, when he was a teenager and his older brother, Pastor Richard Edwin Youngblood.
Dustin Pusch, a lawyer for Jakes, also dismissed Anderson’s claim, telling the Dallas Morning News that Anderson is an unreliable ally of the Youngbloods who are trying to destroy Jakes’ reputation.
When Melvin asked him on Wednesday if he vehemently denies the allegations, Jakes declared, “Absolutely!”
“I haven’t seen this person for 40 years, and this particular individual has been arrested as a child predator twice and convicted,” he said of Duane Youngblood.
Asked if he expected any more accusers to come forward with claims against him, Jakes said he doesn’t know.
“I don’t know where we are right now. From the looks of last year and how many black celebrities and celebrities in general have had to endure this kind of stuff, I don’t know where we are right now,” he said.
“I think that there is a hopelessness, …. desperate people do desperate things. And they filed a motion to have it (defamation lawsuit) dismissed. So far it’s been denied. We filed 600 pages of information. I don’t know what’s next. I didn’t see this coming.”
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