MELBOURNE — Former All Blacks centre Sonny Bill Williams has revealed he recently underwent open-heart surgery at Royal Melbourne Hospital after doctors discovered a serious congenital heart defect he had been born with. The two-time Rugby World Cup winner, who made 58 Test appearances for the All Blacks between 2010 and 2019, disclosed the near-death experience in an emotional YouTube video titled ‘My Heart Stopped’ made with his wife Alana.
Williams, 41, said the defect was detected during a follow-up appointment following his fourth major neck operation earlier this year and warned that without detection the consequences could have been dire. “So, if I didn’t go in and get it checked, they wouldn’t know. And it’s a case of a perfectly healthy-looking person, dropping dead,” he said. His wife Alana added: “I just said bye to my husband. It’s a little bit daunting, but he’s so strong. He’ll be ok,” as the father of five, a devout Muslim, prepared for surgery.
Williams described the operation — which he said amounted to two open-heart surgeries in one — as the most difficult experience of his life and said he suffered hallucinations afterwards. “It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done. Day two, honestly, I thought I wasn’t going to make it. It was crazy,” he said. He added that doctors told him his heart had enlarged to 7.5 centimetres and was about to pop, calling it a miracle it was found, and said: “Alhamdulillah (Praise be to God). And now, the doctors said that I’ve got a better heart than when I walked in here because it’s more efficient now.” His surgeon, Dr Michael O’Keefe, told him: “Definitely the fact that you did so well at such a high level just goes to show you how fit you must have been to be able to compensate for it. You’ve been playing with a handicap which you haven’t realised for a long time.”
Williams, who won Rugby World Cups in 2011 and 2015 and also represented New Zealand’s sevens team at the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, enjoyed successful stints as a rugby league player and in professional boxing. He said doctors told him the heart condition would have implicated his sporting career and reflected that towards his late-20s he felt he could not get as fit as he used to, a feeling now explained by the undiagnosed defect.