Rapper-turned-reality star Ray J has been hospitalized in metro Miami with a severe bout of pneumonia.
The serial entrepreneur and star of “Love & Hip Hop Hollywood” explained that he is on oxygen and has had difficulty breathing and speaking. However, he informed the media that he has not tested positive for COVID-19.
Ray J, 40, explained to Hollywood Unlocked that because of the explosion of the pandemic in Florida, the medical wing he was admitted to is the COVID wing, which has implemented strict protocols that currently bars family and friends from visiting him.
“I been in here all by myself for a week,” he said. “No family members came to see me, not even my wife.”
Physicians initially also assumed Ray J had contracted the novel coronavirus, and the placement in that wing of the hospital was “frightening.”
“I thought it was over,” he told TMZ during a phone call. “I started praying and knew God is good so I just kept praying.”
Ray said he feels fine when he awakens at 6 a.m., but a half-hour later his condition deteriorates and he begins to get paranoid and “fears the worst.”
Ray J, whose birth name is William Ray Norwood Jr., got a word of encouragement from his sister, “The Boy is Mine” singer Brandy Norwood, 42, who told him she couldn’t have “asked for a better brother.” He also had Brandy cheesing from ear-to-ear when he surprised her with a large tattoo of her name on the inside of his right arm.
