Kelly Price breaks silence on COVID battle after believed missing: ‘I died’
In an emotional interview with TMZ, the Grammy-nominated singer revealed that she had "flatlined" as doctors worked to save her life.
Kelly Price broke her silence on Sunday after days of concerns over her safety after she was initially believed to be missing following a recent COVID-19 hospitalization.
The singer made headlines in recent days when a welfare check at her Georgia home resulted in police classifying her as a missing person. Price’s family, namely her sister, said they hadn’t heard from her since she was discharged from the hospital after battling the virus. Despite her representatives releasing public statements assuring that she was alive and recovering, Price’s sister, Shanrae Price, maintained suspicion about her safety.
“I’m just asking everybody to pray,” Shanrae told the Larry Reid Live radio show on Friday. “I understand the attorney is stating that my sister is okay. We don’t know anything until we physically see her.”
In an emotional on-camera interview with TMZ, the 48-year-old Grammy-nominated singer revealed that during her hospitalization she had “flatlined” as doctors worked to save her life.
“At some point they lost me. I woke up a couple of days and the first thing I remember was the doctors standing around me asking me if I knew what year it was,” Kelly Price recalled of the horrifying moment. When the interviewer asked Price to explain what she meant by “they lost me,” she clarified: “I died.”
Price said that she had been battling COVID-19 for about a week before she was hospitalized. Her husband worked with her doctor virtually to treat her from home until her symptoms got worse. “My temperature had raised to 103 [degrees] and my breathing was extremely shallow,” said Price.
Though Price’s near-death experience with COVID-19 ended with her life spared, she told TMZ that she is not yet out of the woods. “I have what is called long COVID and I am facing a very uphill battle right now,” Kelly said, before trailing off in tears. “I suffered a lot of internal damage and so I have a lot of rehabbing to do before I am able to be concert-ready again.”
Price reflected on the tough year she had during the pandemic, having lost her grandmother to COVID-19. Now, Price says, she is focused on herself and her recovery journey.
Kelly explained why she was not at her home when Cobb County authorities came to conduct the previously reported welfare check, revealing that she left her residence because fans were coming to the property ringing the door bell and leaving things at her doorstep. “I literally left my house maybe a week ago because I couldn’t rest there,” she said. “I turned off everything.”
Kelly Price also disputed claims made by her sister about the timeline by which they last saw each other. “It hasn’t been two months since I’ve seen my sister. It’s been a year,” she explained. “I haven’t been in the same room as her since my mother’s funeral. Prior to that we hadn’t seen each other all pandemic long. That’s not new for us. We’ve been strained for a very long time.”
As TheGrio previously reported, Price’s family had called out Kelly’s husband, Terrell Babers, for allegedly barring them from visiting her home. What they determined as suspicious behavior prompted them to alert the authorities to do the welfare check.
Price made clear, “I was never missing … everyone in my family knew exactly where I was. It’s very disappointing that things came to this.”
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