Already have an account?
Get back to the

Susan Lucci Hasn’t Told Her Mother About Her Near Heart Attack: ‘I Didn’t Want to Scare Her’ (Exclusive)

Susan Lucci Still Hasn’t Told Her Mother About Her Emergency Heart Surgery
Susan Lucci attends the 2019 Adapt Leadership Awards at Cipriani 42nd Street on March 14, 2019 in New York City.Roy Rochlin/Getty Images

Susan Lucci continues to thrive after having emergency heart surgery last fall to fix two blocked arteries and counts on all her loved ones for support — except for her mother.

Related: Celebrities Who Survived Heart Attacks

“You know, the truth is I didn’t tell her,” the 72-year-old soap opera legend told Us at the ADAPT Leadership Awards in NYC on March 14. “My mother was a nurse on top of it and I just didn’t want to scare her. She’s living in Florida.” The star’s mother, Jeannette, is turning 102 years old this week, Lucci said, adding, “We’re going down to see her, actually.”

While it’s possible Jeanette would have heard about her daughter’s cardiac health scare on the news, Lucci is banking on the fact that she hasn’t. “We haven’t talked about it. I don’t want to,” Lucci said, explaining that her family’s health history kept her quiet. “You know my dad passed away from [heart disease], so I don’t want to bring it up. But he lived to be in his eighties.” Victor Lucci died in November 2002.

Related: Celebrity Health Scares

In February, the soap star — famous for playing Erica Kane on All My Children for over four decades — opened up about her heart disease incident on Good Morning America. “I was actually in a boutique,” Lucci told GMA’s Amy Robach. “And I suddenly felt what I had heard someone on a TV interview years ago, a woman says that she, leading up to a heart attack, had felt like an elephant was pressing on her chest.”

Susan Lucci Still Hasn’t Told Her Mother About Her Emergency Heart Surgery
Susan Lucci walks the runway for The American Heart Association’s Go Red For Women Red Dress Collection 2019 Presented By Macy’s at Hammerstein Ballroom on February 7, 2019 in New York City. Slaven Vlasic/Getty Images for AHA

Lucci — who has been married to her husband, Helmut Huber, since 1969 — has revealed that her cardiac blockages were due to genetics, not her diet, which has always been healthy. “This was a DNA,” Lucci told Us March 14. “My dad, my wonderful dad gave me more apparently than his Italian coloring! He had calcium deposits in his arteries.” Lucci added that her family had assumed she was more aligned, healthwise, with her mom. “Because I never had any health issues, my whole family, we all thought I had all my mother’s genes, and it turns out that I got my dad’s heart genes.”

Related: Keto, Fasting, 80/20 and More: These Diets Have Helped Stars Shed Major Pounds

Now, however, everything is back to normal. “I’m feeling wonderful. Thank you. I got very lucky. I’ve been in very good hands and I avoided a terrible thing and I’m so lucky to have managed that. I have great doctors and great people around me!”

With reporting by Lexi Ciccone

In this article

Got a Tip form close button
Got a tip for US?
We're All Ears for Celebrity Buzz!