Kid ‘n Play’s Christopher Reid Reveals Heart Transplant

Christoper “Kid” Reid, half of the hip-hop duo Kid ‘n Play, has revealed he has a new heart. During an interview with Michael Strahan on “Good Morning America” on Thursday, Reid said he underwent the life-saving procedure after being diagnosed with congestive heart failure last summer.

“Over the last year or so, [I] maybe just starting feeling more fatigued than before, shortness of breath, sleeping more than normal,” said Reid, who gained fame with Christopher “Play” Martin in the late 1980s and early ’90s for their upbeat music as well as their “House Party” movies. “I think sometimes you chalk it up to, ‘I’m getting older, the road is harsh, doing the old kick step.’”

When the symptoms intensified, he went to the emergency room at Cedars-Sinai in Los Angeles, where doctors diagnosed him with congestive heart failure. He was initially treated with medication, but at his three-week follow-up his cardiologist, Dr. Erika Jones, noticed something wasn’t right.

“He came in very swollen again and that is a little unusual in somebody who’s been started on treatment, for the swelling to come back that quickly,” Jones told “GMA,” adding: “The blood work confirmed my suspicion. It showed that his heart was failing and it was starting to affect his other organs.”

Reid, 61, was told that a heart transplant was his only option and placed him on a transplant wait list. “When we think about status for heart transplant, he was high on the list because of how ill he was and really kind of dealing with a life-or-death situation,” his surgeon, Dr. Laura DiChiacchio, said.

Within nine days, doctors found him a new heart. “They’re saying, ‘Yeah, we got the heart and we want to put it in tomorrow night at 10 p.m.,’” Reid recalled. “We are like, ‘Excuse me?’ But that’s how it is. So the next night, 10 p.m., we go in and about seven hours later, I have a new heart.”

Heart disease remains the leading cause of death in the U.S. and stroke has moved up to the No. 4 spot, according to the American Heart Association. On average, someone dies from cardiovascular disease every 34 seconds. yet, almost 80% of cardiovascular events can be prevented with education and lifestyle changes like moving more, eating healthy, reducing stress and getting enough sleep.

Reid said he’s speaking out about his experience to help others. “A lot of people are walking around with heart disease because they don’t go to the doctor. And you know, traditionally, people of color, we don’t go,” he said. “We don’t go for a lot of reasons. Sometimes we don’t go because we don’t have insurance. A lot of times we don’t go because we don’t want the bad news or we too busy just hustling trying to make it from day to day and we feel we don’t got time or we’ll get over it.

“Well, you might not,” Reid continued. “So I’m urging all of my fans, all of your loved ones to get checked out.”

(Dr. Jones is also the cardiologist of Variety’s Marc Malkin.)

Watch Reid’s “GMA” interview in the video below.