Sean Hayes went to the emergency room twice in one night to get “paddled” — and hid it from his husband.
The revelation came during the Nov. 18 episode of the SmartLess podcast Hayes co-hosts with Will Arnett and Jason Bateman, when guest Hugh Grant talked about struggling with the after-effects of a long transatlantic flight.
“It's brutal,” Grant, 64, said. “I can't do it anymore. I think that's another age thing … I woke up … and it felt like my heart is made of Play-Doh.”
“Sean's got a doctor for you,” Bateman, 55, said.
“Hugh, you should know this, that Sean, two or three nights ago, woke up in the middle of the night with a heart issue,” Arnett, 54, said, adding that Hayes didn't wake up his husband, Scott Icenogle.
Arnett says Hayes “drove himself to Cedars-Sinai. They brought the paddles out, they put him under, they paddled them, he drove home.”
But just an hour later, Arnett said Hayes “woke up to use the bathroom again and drove himself back to Cedars and got paddled again.”
Hayes, 54, has previously said that he has atrial fibrillation, which the Cleveland Clinic explains is “irregular heart rhythm that begin -
s in your heart’s upper chambers (atria)” and can cause symptoms like fatigue, heart palpitations, trouble breathing and dizziness.
He joked during a 2021 appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live! that when he goes to the emergency room, “I'm like Norm from Cheers …because I'm in there all the time.”
He said the paddles “zap you back into regular rhythm” — and after getting paddled twice in one night, Hayes said that he went “to dinner that night.”
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“So your jet leg by comparison,” Arnett joked to Grant, “and I'm not saying this to make you feel bad—”
“Well, no, you are,” Grant chimed in.
“And it’s working,” Hayes said, as Grant confirmed, "I feel humiliated."
But as a consolation prize, Hayes said, “By God, Hugh, you look f—ing great.”
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