Dr Dre is in the ICU after suffering a brain aneurysm

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Dr Dre has sent a message of thanks from his bed at the intensive care unit at Cedars Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles where he is being treated for a brain aneurysm.

The rapper and record producer, who is 55, suffered the aneurysm on Monday and was rushed to the hospital, according to TMZ. 

On Tuesday night, Dre took to Instagram to post an artfully composed black and white picture of himself behind a mixing desk in the recording studio, together with a message of appreciation.  

‘Thanks to my family, friends and fans for their interest and well wishes. I’m doing great and getting excellent care from my medical team. I will be out of the hospital and back home soon. Shout out to all the great medical professionals at Cedars. One Love!!’, he wrote.    

Doctors say they don’t know what caused the bleeding but are performing a series of tests to uncover the cause. 

High blood pressure is the leading cause of a subarachnoid hemorrhage and heavy lifting or strain can cause the aneurysm to rupture. 

The rapper born Andre Young is considered among hip hop’s most influential figures, having risen to commercial fame with the groundbreaking gangsta rap pioneers N.W.A. before crafting the quintessentially West Coast G-Funk sound. 

The master behind the careers of greats including Snoop Dogg, Tupac Shakur and Eminem became a self-proclaimed billionaire after co-founding Beats Electronics, an audio products company purchased by Apple in 2014.

News of Dre’s hospitalization triggered an outpouring of well wishes on social media including from fellow rappers, with N.W.A. co-founder Ice Cube, tweeting: ‘Send your love and prayers to the homie Dr. Dre.’

‘GET WELL DR DRE WE NEED U CUZ,’ wrote Snoop Dogg on Instagram.  

LL Cool J, a rapper who came up in the same era as Dre, tweeted that the music magnate was ‘recovering nicely.’ 

The megaproducer also co-founded the Beats by Dre empire with Jimmy Iovine and helped launch and run Death Row Records.

After coming up with N.W.A., Dr. Dre’s debut album, The Chronic in 1992, made him a music superstar. 

The Compton, California, native later branched out to become a music mogul worth nearly $1 billion. 

His trip to the hospital comes amid a mushrooming Covid-19 crisis in the Los Angeles area as well as Dre’s high-profile divorce proceedings with his longtime partner Nicole Young who recently filed to legally end their marriage on the grounds of irreconcilable differences.

She is seeking nearly $2million in monthly spousal support payments and $5 million for attorney fees from Dre’s estimated $1 billion business empire. 

Dre  currently pays his ex $293,306 per month through a court order.   

He had already been paying Young’s living expenses and moved out of their Malibu estate. As a result, a judge threw out her request. 

The divorce revolves around a prenuptial agreement she had reportedly signed in 1996.

Young believes the paperwork should be rendered null and void after Dre allegedly ripped it up one night as a romantic gesture.

After being accused of embezzling hundreds of thousands of dollars from Record One Studios, a company she co-founded with Dre, Young hit back with accusations of cheating and abuse. 

On Tuesday she revealed her husband of 24 years has more than $260 million in cash on hand, plus a large amount of Apple stock, which she claims is more than enough for him to pay her what she wants.

A hearing was supposed to happen on Wednesday but Dre will still be in the hospital recovering.

Last week, revelations about the couple’s post-split night of passion – plus a private, emotional email from Nicole accusing him of cheating on her – were revealed in his declaration to Los Angeles Superior Court, in which he vehemently denies Nicole’s claim that he abused her during their 24-year marriage during which time they had two children, a 23-year-old son Truice and a 19-year-old daughter Truly.

‘Nicole moved out of the family residence in or about March or early April 2020,’ said Dre – real name Andre Young – in his 189-page court filing. ‘We continued to speak, socialize and to see each other thereafter.

‘While Nicole now says she was afraid of me, for our wedding anniversary on May 25 2020, Nicole invited me to dinner at my Malibu residences where she was living. 

‘I accepted this invitation. We celebrated our anniversary and we had dinner together and I spent the night with her. She was not and is not afraid of me and her allegations to the contrary are pure fabrication created post-divorce filing…….

‘Her recent assertions of fear or abuse and having been coerced or controlled by me are not supported by any evidence other than her say-so and are not credible to anyone who has ever encountered my wife or seen us together.’

Dre is asking the court to forbid 50-year-old Nicole from testifying to ‘such alleged, unsubstantiated abuse.’

And, he added in his declaration, ‘At no time did I ever abuse Nicole or threaten her physical safety. At no time were the police ever called during our marriage. There were never any domestic violence claims made by Nicole during our marriage.

‘There is no documentary evidence of any alleged abuse. There are no texts, no emails, no photographs, no place reports, no domestic violence filings, no documents whatsoever and no witnesses to these offensive allegations.

‘Nicole’s fabrications at this time are appalling and nothing but an effort to attempt to obtain more money than that to which she is entitled.’

Nicole in turn has accused Dre of ‘rampant and repeated marital misconduct’ and she has filed legal documents wanting to know if he had fathered a child outside their marriage.

She also named three of his alleged mistresses – singer Jillian Speer, model turned skin care entrepreneur Kili Anderson and Crystal Rogers, aka Crystal Sierra, known as the ‘Queen of Latin hip-hop’ – and asked a judge to subpoena them as witnesses in the divorce trial.

In his new declaration to the court, Dre addresses Nicole’s cheating accusations, revealing the contents of an emotional email she sent him the day she filed for divorce, June 29 2020, in which she wrote, ‘In my heart and my gut, I know that you are with other people.

‘I’m sure I don’t have to tell you the incredible amount of hurt and pain I am in knowing you are not faithful….’

Pointedly, in the new court documents, Dre does not deny cheating on Nicole. Instead, his lawyer, Laura Wasser, argues that her infidelity claims against him are not proof that he abused her. 

Nicole said she filed for divorce because she believes he was unfaithful.

‘Nicole makes no mention of or even alludes to domestic abuse in any shape or form….Nicole cannot use allegations of alleged infidelity as a substitute for documented evidence of domestic violence.’

During their separation, Dre has been paying Nicole $293,000 a month in support. But she is asking the court to force him to pay her almost $2 million a month, plus another $5 for attorney fees, claims Wasser calls ‘exorbitant and outrageous.’

‘Andre has paid every expense associated with the Malibu beach home he owns that Nicole has been living in since they separated,’ said Wasser. ‘Andre has paid every dime she has charged on multiple credit cards (to the tune of $100K to $300K a month).

‘Andre has paid every bill she has presented…..And yet, Nicole has the temerity to suggest she has been essentially ‘homeless’, all the while living in Andre’s 8,800 square-foot, multi-million dollar beach front home in Malibu, driving a Range Rover with every living expense incurred paid.

‘Given the state of the world and the real hardships and real financial havoc wreaked on millions due to Covid-19, Nicole’s assertions are tone deaf and offensive at best and are simply false.’

Wasser also reasserted Dre’s claim that Nicole had ’embezzled’ more than $350K from one of the rap star’s companies.

‘While Nicole falsely claims in her declaration that she has no money to pay her expenses, she fails to tell the court that after she filed for divorce, she embezzled a total of $385,029 from Andre’s separate property recording studio business,’ the attorney added. ‘Nicole has refused to account for said monies.’