Comedian D.L. Hughley on having COVID-19: ‘What I had was passing the hell out’

Comedian D.L. Hughley joked and warned about his COVID-19 experience on Tuesday following his collapse during a live stand-up set in Nashville last month.

“I’d been dehydrated. I knew that I was burning the candle at both ends, and I knew I was running a little low. So I wasn’t really shocked when I passed out. But I was shocked when I got to the hospital,” Hughley said Tuesday on “Jimmy Kimmel Live.”

The episode was guest hosted by “black-ish” star Anthony Anderson while Kimmel takes a summer break from ABC’s late-night series.

“If you go to the hospital for anything nowadays, you’re gonna get a COVID test,” Hughley added. “So they told me I was dehydrated, they told me that my electrolytes were low. They wanted to run some other tests. ‘Oh! And you got COVID.’ I’m like, ‘What?!!’”

Entertainment & Arts

Comedian D.L. Hughley tests positive for coronavirus after fainting onstage

Comedian D.L. Hughley said he tested positive for COVID-19 after collapsing onstage during a performance in Nashville.

June 22, 2020

Hughley, 57, reiterated that he didn’t have any of the classic symptoms of the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, such as coughing, fever, shortness of breath or the loss of taste or smell.

“What I had was passing the hell out,” he quipped. “That’s what I had.”

After “The Hughleys” star lost consciousness while performing at the Zanies comedy nightclub, he posted a video on Twitter explaining that he was treated for exhaustion and dehydration.

On Tuesday, the comedian also plugged his new book, “Surrender, White People! Our Unconditional Terms for Peace,” which he co-wrote with Doug Moe of the Upright Citizens Brigade comedy troupe.

“Obviously, it’s a provocative title, but it just means surrendering your privilege. Because all of us believe that we’re entitled to things and that’s kind of innate,” he told Anderson. “But we have a nation that was built on the premise that some people should have this and some people should have less.”

The radio host, who also penned the bestsellers “How Not to Get Shot” and “Black Man, White House,” said that his solution is to write “a peace treaty while the getting’s still good.”

“We’re getting Blacker, we’re getting browner, we’re getting fatter, we’re getting higher. So in about 25 years we’re going to be a nation that looks decidedly different,” he said. “I decided to take a comedic vantage point and write a peace treaty. With a peace treaty, they get to feel not horrible and we get some things that we want.”