Toni Braxton Says She 'Should Be Dead' After Nearly Suffering Heart Attack but Late Sister Traci Was 'Watching Over' Her

Mar. 15, 2025

From left: Toni Braxton and Traci Braxton.Photo:Dia Dipasupil/WireImage; Slaven Vlasic/Getty

Dia Dipasupil/WireImage; Slaven Vlasic/Getty

Toni Braxtonbelieves her sisterTraci Braxtonwas her guardian angel during a recent health scare.

On the series premiere ofThe Braxtonson Aug. 9, Toni, 56, was hesitant to tell her sistersTowanda,Trina,Tamarand motherDr. Evelyn Braxtonabout nearly suffering a heart attack two years after her sisterTraci’s deathfrom esophageal cancer.

“In true Toni fashion, asked the family to come to dinner, and she had something to tell us, but this time when she told us that she wanted to talk, the setting of her tone was very melancholy, and I’m really afraid, because Toni had this health scare recently,” Trina, 49, shared. “Toni has always been recluse when it comes to her feelings. She’s never really been this person who just wants everybody to know what’s going on with her in her life, and especially with her health.”

Traci Braxton, Evelyn Braxton, Toni Braxton, Towanda Braxton and Tamar Braxton arrive at the world premiere screening of “Twist Of Faith” on February 4, 2013 in Los Angeles, California.Araya Doheny/WireImage

Araya Doheny/WireImage

However, Toni — who was diagnosed withLupusin 2007 — has another reason for keeping her health problems close to the vest.

“I know I have to tell the girls about a health scare, which makes me feel some kind of way, because the last health scare we heard was Traci…” she shared. “On the brink of Traci stuff, I don’t want to get them riled up, [thinking] ‘Oh, is Toni okay?’ So I don’t even want to tell them. Maybe I shouldn’t. I don’t know.”

Over dinner, the “Un-Break My Heart” singer finally revealed the full extent of her own health struggles. Toni told her family she nearly had a widowmaker heart attack — which theCleveland Clinicdescribes as “a type of heart attack in which you have a full blockage in your heart’s biggest artery.”

Steve Granitz/WireImage

Thankfully, she shared that her doctors “caught it just before it happened.” She added, “If I had a heart attack I wouldn’t have survived, I wouldn’t be here right now.”

As Toni broke down in tears, she told her family members that Traci was her guardian angel. She said, “They told me your sister was watching over you because they right, you should be dead today. You should not be alive.”

“I had to have a stint put in my heart, which was extremely scary,” she shared in a confessional. “That’s a very scary procedure itself, but when my doctor told me I might not ever be able to do a tour again. Okay? I heard it before, but this was different. They say you may never be able to do another tour because you could have a heart attack.”

Toni opened up to her family about the emotional toll of her health scare, saying, “It’s crazy anxiety. I just think about it all the time… It’s really messed up that I’m scared every day. If I have a heart attack, I won’t survive. I can’t handle even that feeling.”

“Just because they say it, doesn’t make it true,” Towanda responded.

“All I could think about were the boys and I hate saying it out loud even now, because it’s real. It’s real life,” Toni added in a confessional, referring to her sons,Denim and Diezel Braxton-Lewis.

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source: people.com