Christopher “Kid” Reid, one half of the Hip-Hop duo Kid ‘n Play, underwent a heart transplant last summer after he was diagnosed with congestive heart failure.
Reid opened up about his life-saving surgery during an interview with Michael Strahan on “Good Morning America” on Thursday.
Reid said he was diagnosed with congestive heart failure after experiencing fatigue, shortness of breath, excessive sleepiness and water retention in his body.
“Over the last year or so, [I] maybe just starting feeling more fatigued than before, shortness of breath, sleeping more than normal,” said Reid. “I think sometimes you chalk it up to, ‘I’m getting older, the road is harsh, doing the old kick step.'”
The 61-year-old comedian is pictured performing in Pasadena on April 9, 2025, shortly before his heart transplant surgery.
Reid’s signs and symptoms soon intensified. He went to the emergency room at Cedars-Sinai in Los Angeles, where a doctor diagnosed him with congestive heart failure. His doctor put him on heart medications, including a diuretic to help his body eliminate excess fluid.
But at his follow-up appointment 3 weeks later, his cardiologist, Dr. Erika Jones, noticed he was still retaining water.
“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.”
Dr. Jones said Reid’s blood work showed his heart and other organs were failing.
“The blood work confirmed my suspicion,” she continued. “It showed that his heart was failing and it was starting to affect his other organs.”
Reid’s cardiac surgeon told him that a heart transplant was his only option and placed him on a transplant waiting 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 a heart for Reid and they prepared him for surgery.
“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.”
Reid, pictured with Christopher “Play” Martin, said he hopes his experience will inspire other men with symptoms to get evaluated for heart disease.
“A lot of people are walking around with heart disease because they don’t go to the doctor,” said Reid. “And you know, traditionally, people of color, we don’t go. 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. So I’m urging all of my fans, all of your loved ones to get checked out.”
Watch the video below.
