During an appearance on the Rasslin’ with Brandon F. Walker podcast, Jake Roberts talked about being sick late last year:
“I got sick here a while back and I almost died, just a few months ago. No it wasn’t [COVID]. It’s just a thing that happens with people like me that are foolish, that wind up smoking cigarettes and it got me down man and it was stomping a hole in me and I woke up one morning and I started coughing and I couldn’t quit and when I did quit, I had no air, I couldn’t breath. I could not get any air up, and I fell to the floor and I reached out and grabbed the phone and I called my daughter and she lives like four minutes from me and she got her ass over there, scooped me up, dragged me to the f*cking — dragged me to the hospital and I almost died. I almost died. My lungs, they barked. They said enough man, you gotta stop Jake. You’re killing us and bottom line, I obviously have O.P.D. [Obstructive pulmonary disease], I have emphysema and [it’s] my own doing and unfortunately, my family, we have a couple of lung issues anyway genetically and I did not know that. Here I am today and everything is beautiful.”
(quote courtesy of PostWrestling.com)