The actress initially dismissed her symptoms because she’d experienced similar chest pains a few years earlier.

Sopranos star Aida Turturro had a heart attack and didn’t realize it: ‘I should’ve died’

The actress initially dismissed her symptoms because she'd experienced similar chest pains a few years earlier.

By Emlyn Travis

Emlyn Travis

Emlyn Travis is a news writer at **. She has been working at EW since 2022. Her work has previously appeared on MTV News, Teen Vogue, and NME.

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June 4, 2026 10:55 a.m. ET

Aida Turturro on 'The Sopranos'. Credit:

Craig Blankenhorn/HBO

- Aida Turturro is looking back at the time she suffered a heart attack and didn't even realize it.

- The *Sopranos* actress brushed off her symptoms because she'd experienced similar chest pains in the past.

- However, testing revealed that over 80 percent of her arteries were clogged, resulting in her undergoing a quadruple bypass.

Aida Tuturro once had a heart attack and didn’t even know.

The *Sopranos* actress, who played Tony’s sister Janice on the Emmy-winning drama, revealed that she suffered the medical emergency while visiting a friend, but brushed off the symptoms thinking it was related to some chest pains that she’d experienced two years prior.

“This is what happened. I go up island to see a friend and then I come back and… I literally, I'm on my friend's floor in pain in my heart,” Turturro said on a recent episode of the* **MesSy* podcast. “And I’ve gotta drive back two hours in the rain to Montauk with the dog. And my friend's daughter is like, ‘Should we call the ambulance? I’m like, ‘No! I'm fine!’”

Mike Coppola/Getty

Another friend was similarly concerned about Turturro’s condition when she returned home that evening.

“I walk in. He's like, ‘Whoa, you don't look so good.’ I'm like, pale,” she recalled. “I’m like, ‘Yeah I don't feel so good. Just drove two hours in the fog, in the rain. I'm gonna lay down.’”

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After three days, Turturro explained she called her cousin about her health problems. He then directed her to his doctor, who recommended that she see a cardiologist and undergo testing.

“He's like, ‘Oh, you had a heart attack.’ And I was crying like, ‘I had a heart attack!’ They do the catheterization,” she exclaimed. “I’m like, ‘I should be fine.’ My friends are at the house watching my dog, it's like 9 in the morning.”

However, during the procedure, Turturro asked the doctor why she couldn’t hear her heartbeat.

“He's like, ‘Um, we're gonna have to take you… All your arteries are clogged now. Almost, like, I think they said 88 to 90-something percent. All four,” she said. “So I was rushed to the emergency… and I could have died. I should have died then, but I didn't because I didn’t.”

She subsequently underwent a quadruple bypass, but noted that the emergency didn’t keep her down for too long.

“Once I got home, I think it was a week later, I was organizing the linen closet,” she said. “I had a little help. I was like, ‘I can't take that linen closet right now.’ I swear I'm not lying. I am not lying, but I did have someone helping me!”

She continued, “I was fine. I had a lot of friends, I'm blessed with beautiful people in my life. And you know what, you just gotta go, ‘It's all in your brain.’ And again, I learned my lessons like you have to take care of yourself.”

Listen to Turturro talk about her health in the clip above.

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