Actor and comedian Adam Sandler gave fans an update on his health — following his recent hip surgery — at last Monday’s Gotham Awards.
Sandler told entertainment outlet Page Six that he was recovering from the procedure, but that being forced to have his wife and daughters help him to tie his own shoes had the unfortunate effect of making him feel a bit old.
“It’s only painful to say out loud,” the “Happy Gilmore” star added. “I say it was because of basketball so that feels a little bit rugged, but then being unable to tie my own shoe didn’t feel rugged.”
Sandler’s stand-ins — when it came to tying his shoes, at least — were his wife Jackie and his teenage daughters, Sunny and Sadie. “They were nice about it,” he said.
The comedian went on to say that it did take him awhile to get used to his new reality: “I screamed a lot then calmed down and ate some food.”
Sandler discussed the surgery in a bit more detail during a recent appearance with late night comedian Jimmy Fallon.
WATCH:
.@AdamSandler got dazed and confused during his recent hip surgery. 😵💫 #FallonTonight pic.twitter.com/OEWZbByZrB
— The Tonight Show (@FallonTonight) December 2, 2022
Describing the scene as he prepared to go in for surgery, Sandler explained that the anesthesiologist had tried to have a conversation with him — after giving him some “light drugs.”
According to the “Billy Madison” star, the doctor had asked what kind of music he might like to have on in the operating suite — and Sandler wondered why he would be listening to music at all if he was going to be in surgery at the time.
“He goes, ‘Who do you like?’ I go, ‘I don’t know, I don’t know who I like,'” Sandler recalled. “And so he goes, ‘I listened to Dolly Parton on the way here, and I go, ‘Yeah, yeah,’ and he goes, ‘Do you like Dolly Parton?’ And I go, ‘I think everybody likes Dolly Parton.'”
Sandler said that the drugs were really starting to kick in as the doctors gave him a spinal block — that would numb him from the waist down — and he clearly remembered the loud beat of the music in the background as the doctor asked him some last-minute questions. Too dazed to remember whether he had even answered any of the questions accurately, the one thing he did recall saying before he went down for the count was: “This isn’t Dolly Parton.”
Sandler also revealed that his wife had worried prior to the surgery that the doctors might operate on the wrong hip. “So she wrote on my right hip, ‘NO,'” he said.