Billy Porter 'dead for three days' during sepsis battle
Billy Porter has revealed a trapped kidney stone triggered sepsis, which left him hooked up to a ECMO machine and in a coma for days before he made a full recovery.
Billy Porter says he was "dead for three days" amid his sepsis battle.
In September 2025, the 56-year-old actor pulled out of playing the Emcee in the Broadway production Cabaret after being diagnosed with a "serious case" of the life-threatening illness, where the body's extreme response to an infection causes inflammation, which can damage organs and tissues.
And now Billy has shared that after a "routine check", doctors discovered a kidney stone "trapped in my urethra" caused him to develop a type of sepsis called urosepsis, which begins in the urinary tract and travels to the kidneys.
On the latest episode of the Outlaws with TS Madison podcast, the performer shared: "When they got in there, there was so much pus, and bile, and infection behind the stone. It bubbled up, and I went uroseptic in minutes."
Billy's condition was so severe that doctors hooked him up on an ECMO machine and placed him into a coma for several days.
According to the National Health Service (NHS), the machine "will pump blood from a large vein through an artificial lung (the membrane) outside of your body", so that the "artificial lung adds oxygen to the blood and removes waste carbon dioxide".
And "blood is then returned" to an individual's body "through another large vein" near the heart.
Billy continued: "I was on the ECMO machine. I was dead for three days."
He now regards himself as a "walking miracle".
After the two-time Emmy winner woke up and was taken off life support, doctors told Billy that his legs "had gone into compartment syndrome, which is when the muscles close in on themselves and cut off the oxygen".
He recalled: "So they had to cut me open on either side of my leg while I was in a coma, and from my knee to my hip, and leave it open for two days so they could save my leg."
Billy made a full recovery and feels "so grateful to be here".
He added: "It is such a gift."
The singer's illness has changed his outlook on life.
Billy explained: "And as I sat in my hospital bed, reflecting, there were a couple of things I heard.
"The first thing I heard was, work smarter, not harder. The second thing I heard was, be obedient and answer the call. And the third thing I heard was, don't you ever stop telling the truth again.
"I unconsciously silenced myself for fear that I wouldn't be on the A-list anymore."
