Curing Through Comedy
By Danni Levy
Emmanuel Sonubi looks like the last guy on earth you’d expect to keel over with heart failure. Built like a nightclub bouncer, which he was for years, he’s the sort of bloke you’d expect to stay off the doctor’s list. But six years ago at just 39, halfway through a gig, his heart gave out on stage.
“There’s so many times I’ve looked at people and gone, ‘how have I got heart failure and you’re fine?’” he says. “It’s so weird. It affects everyone so differently. But it really took a lot for me to take it seriously, if I’m being honest. When I got taken to hospital, I thought they were going to tell me it was lung cancer. I looked fit and healthy, but I was far from it.”
Emmanuel had started to feel grotty a couple of weeks before. “I ignored it, because I’m a guy, and we don’t listen to our bodies because we’re men,” he says. “I just started to have these really weird sensations in my chest. Every time I would lie down, I couldn’t breathe properly. I didn’t realise it was because my heart wasn’t strong enough to pump oxygen around my body. Then when I was in Dubai, I had a throat infection which spread to my chest and lungs. That hit my heart, and it triggered cardiomyopathy — heart failure. Literally, while I was on stage, I just couldn’t breathe. That night, back at the hotel, I just started coughing up blood. That’s when my brain went, ‘this is lung cancer, you’re dying. You’re dying right now.”’
Given his lifestyle, it made sense to think it was cancer. “I smoked for years,” he says. “I smoked since I was 15. I smoked so much. When I quit, I was on maybe 30 a day. The moment I went into hospital, I was like, ‘yeah, you’re not smoking ever again.’ Because before that, I could blame it on ignorance. But now I know. If I pick up a cigarette, that’s my fault.”
Emmanuel’s diet wasn’t doing him any favours either. “Absolutely shocking,” he admits. “Because I was either on the road or still working full time, and I just ate absolute crap constantly.”
When the doctors told him it wasn’t cancer, he reacted like only a comedian would. “When they told me it was cardiomyopathy, I was happy at that point,” he says. “Because I didn’t know what it was. They didn’t say heart disease, they just said cardiomyopathy, so I didn’t know what it was. But all I knew is that it wasn’t cancer. I’d been sat there in hospital for three days waiting for them to tell me I had cancer. I’d been putting on this brave face for people coming to see me, but I was ready for them to go, ‘you’ve got weeks to live.’ So when they told me it was cardiomyopathy, they must’ve thought I was crazy because I was like, ‘ah, yes, get in! Let’s get me more of that cardiomyopathy!’ I was like, ‘so I’m not dying?’ They were like, ‘well, not of cancer.”’
“I’ve always played rugby, I used to teach dance. But I smoked the whole way through it all. So I never really noticed the health deficit.”
The real problem wasn’t activity — it was lifestyle. “It was poor diet, smoking, drinking, all the extracurriculars,” he says. “Thirty cigarettes a day easily, and drinking probably most weekends. Monday to Friday I was in the office. Then Thursday to Sunday, I’d be gigging somewhere. I’d come off stage on a high from having a good gig, and someone says, ‘do you want to go out for a beer?’ Yes! I drank everything. And all the ‘performance-enhancing drugs’, we’ll call them, weren’t a big help. Part of what happened to my heart was genetic, but I believe the drugs are what tipped it over the edge.”
Emmanuel is deadly serious about how fast his life changed. “Initially, because it wasn’t lung cancer, it felt like a win, but once I understood what heart failure was, that was a real shock,” he says. “I’ve had to change everything.” And change everything he really has. Emmanuel’s new tour, Life After Near Death, takes the whole thing; the diagnosis, the mistakes, the lifestyle, and turns it into something funny, brutal, and honest. “Before, I could hide behind the comedy,” he says. “Whereas with this show, this is me finally admitting what I did. It’s very easy to go, ‘oh, it was just genetics, it wasn’t my fault.’ But a lot of it was my fault. I did these things. I put these things inside of me. So it’s been a way to show people that taking blame isn’t a bad thing, it’s a responsible thing. Then you can change.”
Emmanuel really wants to show that strength and vulnerability can exist in the same bloke. “I want to show a positive side of masculinity,” he says. “There are so many examples of the toxic side, but it doesn’t leave very good examples for a lot of young guys that come see the show. I’ve had mums bring their sons along and say they were really happy they got to see that, so they know they can talk and they can be vulnerable. Boys and men don’t have to hide things away.
“If you’ve got a group of young men being told nothing other than ‘you’re toxic, you’re toxic, you’re toxic,’ and they don’t feel toxic, because they’re innocent, blank canvases, then someone like Andrew Tate comes along and goes, ‘guys, you’re not toxic,’ they’re going to listen to him. Now anything he says seems right. We don’t have enough good examples to go to young men and say, ‘guys, you’re not toxic.’ Masculinity isn’t bad. It’s what you do with it. No one expects the big dude to cry. So if I’m now on stage showing people that you can be vulnerable and own up to your mistakes, that’s a good thing.”
Emmanuel’s latest challenge is the London to Brighton Bike Ride next summer with the British Heart Foundation. “This was my idea,” he laughs. “The moment I looked into it, I thought, ‘what the hell have you signed up for?’ When the BHF reached out, they said, ‘could we work together?’ I said, ‘how about the London to Brighton Bike Ride?’ They said, ‘great idea.’ Then I looked at how far it was and thought, ‘what have you suggested?’ It’s about ninety kilometres. I don’t even like driving to Brighton, let alone cycling! Through COVID I cycled a lot, but the most I ever did was about eighty kilometres.”
Emmanuel is looking ripped and training a lot- mostly doing pyramid sets in the gym and cardio. “I’m about 120 kilos now, and by June next year, I want to be sub-100,” he says. “If I’m about 95, that bike ride will be easy.
“We’re planning a charity night in Brighton on the day, to raise awareness and money. But it’s really about visibility, so people who’ve got heart issues know they’re not alone. When you get your diagnosis, you get these letters from doctors that might as well be written in another language. I didn’t know the British Heart Foundation had people who sit with you and explain what it means. No one tells you that.”
Emmanuel has harsh words for the governments who permit the sale of self-destructive substances. “Refined sugar is the worst,” he says. “If it was discovered now, it’d be an illegal substance. I’ve seen brain scans of people on sugar and people on cocaine — they look the same.
“We’ve gone from sugar to sweeteners, from smoking to vaping,” he says. “We’re not moving forward, just sideways. And that’s the thing — self-destruction’s fine, as long as the right people make money from it. That’s how I feel about it. We all know smoking’s bad. It’s not a debate. But we’re still allowed to do it because it makes money.
“Don’t just presume you’re in good health. Go and get a check-up. You can do it privately. The reason we don’t, and I know it was true for me, is because we’re scared. If you go looking for trouble, sometimes you’ll find it. Guys are a lot more scared than we admit. We don’t want to go there.”
Scared of health tests he is no more, but Emmanuel confesses he still gets nervous before gigs. “I’ve never had a bad gig,” he says. “I’ve never died on stage. So I’m now constantly nervous that the next gig I do, it’s going to happen, because eventually, everyone has a bad show. Holding onto that keeps me sharp. I still get nervous — but now I’m not scared anymore, because I’ve seen worse. If someone doesn’t laugh at a joke, that’s not the worst thing that’s ever going to happen to me.”
So what makes Life After Near Death different? “Now I have an opinion,” he says. “Before, my shows were just generic comedy. Nothing not to like. Now I say things that might rub people the wrong way. But I’m not scared to do that anymore because I’ve seen worse. If you don’t like my joke, that’s not the worst thing that can happen to me. I make it relatable. Most people have gone out and got drunk. Most people have smoked. Most people have done something stupid. I’ve just taken it further — and lived to talk about it.”
He grins. “If you can laugh at dying,” he says, “you can handle anything.”
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Emmanuel Sonubi has teamed up with British Heart Foundation to take on the London to Brighton Bike Ride on June 21, 2026. Help him smash his £54k fundraising target here. Or sign up here to take on the iconic cycling challenge yourself.
Check out Emmanuel’s upcoming tour dates and grab your must have tickets at ticketmaster.co.uk
See you there!