Getty Pink, who recently recovered from the coronavirus, told Ellen DeGeneres suffering through the disease was "terrifying."
“What About Us” singer Pink detailed her scary battle with the coronavirus during an appearance with Ellen DeGeneres on Thursday. Pink said she never experienced a fever but woke up in the middle of the night unable to breathe, and her 3-year-old son had a range of scary symptoms that left her wondering if she should take him to the hospital.
“It started with a fever and it would come and go. Then he would have stomach pains, diarrhea, chest pains, and a headache. Then a sore throat. It was all over the place. Every day was a new symptom,” Pink told Ellen of her son, Jameson. Both celebrities participated in the interview from their homes, where they are self-isolating.
Pink said her family started their quarantine on March 11. Days later, Jameson started to experience symptoms. She didn’t think anything of it at first because “3-year-olds get sick all the time,” she said.
At one point, Jameson’s fever reached 103 degrees, she said, but her doctor told her: “There’s nothing to do. … We’re not seeing this take 3-year-olds out so just stay home.” But it didn’t stop Pink from worrying. “There’s only so much Tylenol you want to give a kid,” she said. “It was terrifying.”
Pink got sick next. “In hindsight it all makes sense,” she said. “When it’s all happening it’s such a weird experience that you don’t put it together until after the fact … until days go by.”
Pink Didn’t Experience Typical Symptoms
Pink’s symptoms weren’t like what her son experienced or like what was being reported on the news. “I never had a fever,” she said. “I never had what they tell you to look for.”
Pink has suffered from “really bad” asthma her whole life, to the point where she’s been hospitalized for it. She knew something was wrong when she woke up in the middle of the night and couldn’t breathe. She needed a nebulizer for the first time in 20 years. “I have this inhaler that I use. I couldn’t function without it. That’s when I started to get really scared,” she said.
Pink was able to get tested. “We took that chance,” she said. It came back positive a week later. “I already knew that’s what it was going to say.”
Pink got emotional remembering Jameson throwing up and saying he had chest pains and that it hurt him to breathe. “That’s when I wondered if it was time to go to the hospital,” she said. “It’s the scariest thing I’ve been through in my entire life.”
The star said her illness started with a sore throat and that she never had a fever. There wasn’t anything to do except wait for the virus to run its course. She talked about how confusing the symptoms were because they constantly changed. “There was no rhyme or reason to this,” she said.
“I was crying and praying,” she said, “I thought they told us our kids were going to be OK. When people started explaining this disease it was too early to be able to name it completely and tell everyone what to look for.”
Pink emphasized how important it is for people to get tested. For people who are angry about the fact that Pink was able to get tested, she said, “You should be angry about that. We should work together to try to change that.”
Pink Donated $1 Million to COVID-19 Relief
Pink took to Instagram on April 4 to reveal she and her son had recovered. She emphasized how important it is to be tested.
“It is an absolute travesty and failure of our government to not make testing more widely accessible,” she said. “This illness is serious and real.”
The star has donated $1 million to help medical professionals. “THANK YOU to all of our healthcare professionals and everyone in the world who are working so hard to protect our loved ones,” she wrote. “You are our heroes! These next two weeks are crucial: please stay home. Please. Stay. Home.”
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