Stephen A. Smith Reveals COVID-19 Almost Ended His Life, Vaccine Saved Him

Stephen A Smith reveals he was sidelined with COVID and details thinking he wouldn’t make it; His doctor says the vaccine saved his life.

Source: Rodin Eckenroth / Getty

Stephen A. Smith is one of the funniest, loudest, and accidentally meme-able personalities when it comes to sports. For decades, many of us have woken up and watched him day after day as he gives us his unfiltered opinion on sports and life in general.

Recently, he had time away from blessing our screens in mid-December due to his battle with COVID-19, which he says was nothing short of scary.

“For me personally, it hit me differently,” he said. “You’re assuming that you’ll have a fever, might have a cough, gonna have that massive headache — but you’ll get over it,” he said. “In a lot of cases that was the case. In my case it was totally different.

“I had 103 degree fever every night. Woke up with chills and a pool of sweat. Headaches were massive. Coughing profusely. And it got to a point where right before New Year’s Eve, I was in the hospital into New Year’s Day. That’s how I brought in the New Year.”

“They told me, had I not been vaccinated, I wouldn’t be here. That’s how bad it was. I had pneumonia in both lungs. My liver was bad. It had ravaged me to the point where even now I have monitor my volume — get to the gym every day, walk before you run. Work your way back because I’m still not 100 percent with my lungs, but I’m COVID negative. I’m on the road to recovery. But if it wasn’t for several doctors, I wouldn’t be here. Love and respect for what they did. Love and respect for people in the sports community and ESPN executives for checking on me every single day. Dave Roberts, Norby Williamson, Jimmy Pitaro — I can’t thank you enough.”

Smith even went on to talk about how crazy the virus can be person to person. He revealed his sister, who smokes, caught COVID-19 and was fine in four days, while he had an all out battle where he had to win in the 4th quarter.

Stephen A tested positive in mid-December and spent New Years in the hospital, which is a long battle with the virus. Thankfully, he made it back in time to troll the Cowboy fans.