Ready to give his fans an inside look into his personal life, Everybody Loves Raymond star Ray Romano revealed he recently had heart surgery.
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During the latest episode of the WTF With Marc Maron podcast, Romano said he had to have a stent put in after 90% of the main artery of his heart was blocked.
“I got kinda lucky that we found it before having a heart attack,” Ray explained. The actor also said that he struggled with his cholesterol for the past two decades. His doctor even suggested getting medication to control the levels.
“Every time, I said, ‘Let me do it myself,’” Ray Romano recalled. “And I would go home, and I would eat right. Not vegan, but a little healthier, and get it down a couple ticks.”
Romano also said that his approach lowered his cholesterol from 280 to 220. However, the actor admitted that he would eventually go back to unhealthy habits. “But then I’d go home and think I was hot s—, I got it down already, and I’d start cheating, and cheating, and that was the cycle.”
This led up to his artery getting blocked. “Now because I’m on the meds, my cholesterol dropped right away,” Raymond continued to speak about his heart health. “If I could go back 20 years, I would have gone on the meds. It was hard for me to sustain that diet stuff.”
Ray Romano Admits to Not Feeling Old Until He Had His Heart Scare
As he continued his appearance on the podcast, Ray Romano stated he never felt old until his recent health scare.
“Man, saying 50 was weird, but saying 60… it sounds foreign, it sounds fake, you know?” he continued. “I know in my head I don’t feel that old. In my body, I’m getting a couple of notices that I am that old.”
This isn’t the first time that Romano mentioned his heart issues. Last month, he told Entertainment Tonight that he ended up going to a cardiologist after he started experiencing chest pains. The issues happened while he was directing and starring in his new film Somewhere in Queens.
“I called my agent at one in the morning because I couldn’t sleep, I go, ‘I can’t do it, can’t do this,’” Ray Romano recalled. “Because — I’m not joking — I had to go to my cardiologist in New York and get on the treadmill and do a stress test because I was getting chest pains.”
According to its IMDb description, Somewhere in Queens follows a couple, Leo and Angela Russo, as they live in Queens surrounded by their overbearing Italian-American family. Romano stars in the film alongside Laurie Metcalf and Jennifer Esposito.
