Tamar Braxton posted a sorrowful message to her Tamartian friends on Instagram Wednesday morning: She's pulling out of the Dancing With the Stars competition.
Braxton had missed a few rehearsals because she was hospitalized with pneumonia. But this week she explained how she and her doctors realized that she doesn't have pneumonia; she has something more serious that makes her unable to perform on DWTS or on her upcoming music tour.
"With a heavy heart I regret to inform you that my season of #DWTS has to come to an end along with the rest of my tour dates with @musicbykem," Braxton's Instagram post read. "After yesterday's final #DWTS performance, I went back to the hospital (after the doctors didn't want me to leave in the first place) only to find out that I don't have pneumonia but something way more serious, and that is having several P.E.'s (blood clots in both sides of my lungs)," she explained.
She posted a photo of herself lying in a hospital bed alongside her DWTS dancing partner Val Chmerkovskiy.
"As you all know I will be the first to always encourage anyone to push through any obstacle that comes along one's way. But in this case, my health is my current obstacle," she said in her post.
She insinuated that if she had not gotten the care she needed, she would have died: "I woke up to a mirror and saw myself this morning and that makes me the winner because that almost wasn't the case. Take care of yourselves."
Braxton was a fan and judge favorite this season, with memorable performances to Janet Jackson's "Rhythm Nation," as well as one in which she danced while her husband, Vince Herbert, played the piano. She probably would have won the competition or come in a close second, so it's sad to see her go.
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Diana Ozemebhoya Eromosele is a staff writer at The Root and the founder and executive producer of Lectures to Beats, a Web series that features video interviews with scarily insightful people. Follow Lectures to Beats on Facebook and Twitter.
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