Funnyman Andrew Dice Clay is taking his health more seriously than ever following his hospitalization this week.
Clay, 60, had been experiencing on-and-off pain for more than two weeks before he went to the hospital, was diagnosed with a partially blocked artery and underwent a stent procedure.
He told Page Six on Thursday that he had been feeling pain in his triceps, so he thought he’d just pinched a nerve at the gym. “It was sort of a pulling feeling going from my neck to my chest,” he said.
“I feel good, but now I gotta tell people, ‘Don’t smoke,'” Clay told us. “I live a stressed out, anxiety-ridden existence in Hollywood for going on 40 years. Smoke your weed, have a good time, but don’t smoke cigarettes … I’m not jonesing for it. I just looked at my cigarettes and said, ‘You think you can beat me?’ and I stopped.”
He added, “I told you, I just need young friends.”
Clay was referencing what he told us over the summer.
“I’m going to distance myself from anyone over the age of 45,” he joked to Page Six in August. “Old people just talk about medical problems — ‘I gotta take this medication, that medication, I got this wrong with me, that wrong with me.’ Just give me a burger and flash me! … If I have a friend tell me he’s being fitted for a brace, I’m going to tell him, ‘Leave my home and never come back. We’re not gonna be friends. You don’t exist anymore.’ I just want new, young buddies.”
“Young friends” who have reached out to Clay since his hospitalization include his “A Star Is Born” co-stars Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper, as well Tom Green and Criss Angel, who he told us “sent every piece of chocolate in Las Vegas.”
The comedy legend is currently taking time for himself in Las Vegas with his sons, Max and Dillon.
The “Dice” star also told us Thursday, “I’m Brooklyn-born and bred. I can take a lot. Dice will stand again shortly. I miss being on stage. But give me the holidays to relax. I just want to eat some turkey and chill out.”