Anthony Anderson Reveals Health Diagnosis

Anthony Anderson is opening up about his experience with gout.

The G20 star, 54, revealed he developed the painful diagnosis after eating too much of Louisiana’s seafood while shooting a show there.

“I was living in New Orleans for a while, shooting a show there,” Anderson told Dax Shepard on Monday’s episode of Armchair Expert. “I was eating nothing but seafood and shellfish.”

“All the purine in the shellfish contributed to my buildup of uric acid and — I’ll never forget — I was in the scene, and I went to kick a door in,” he continued. “And I hit it. And I said, ‘I think I broke my toe.’”

The Black-ish star pushed through the pain at first, but couldn’t tough it out for long. “We were filming in a hotel in the middle of the night and I was laying across the bed and they said, ‘Action,’ and I jumped up to run and chase the perp, and I put pressure on my right foot and I collapsed,” he recalled. “And I was like, ‘Oh yeah, broke my toe.’ I went to the doctor the next day limping.”

After explaining what he thought had happened to a doctor, Anderson was shocked to learn it was far more likely he had developed gout. “They’re like, ‘You might have the gout.’ I was like, ‘No, ain’t got the gout,’” he remembered.

Gout is a painful form of arthritis, according to the Mayo Clinic, which develops when high levels of uric acid cause crystals to form in the blood and around a joint. Some kinds of seafood, including scallops, crab, and other shellfish, are high in purines, which break down into uric acid, and people at risk for gout are recommended to consume them in moderation.

The Departed actor, who is at a higher risk for gout due to his type 2 diabetes, was given an X-ray to “humor [him]” but ultimately was told by his doctor that a break in his toe wasn’t the cause of his pain.

“‘We got good news and bad news. Which one do you want first?’” he recalled the doctor telling him. “I was like, ‘The good news.’ ‘All right, you didn’t break your toe.’ ‘What’s the bad news?’ ‘You got the gout.’”

“You motherf—ker,” Anderson joked. “If you look at it, it looks red hot. If you put your hand above it, you can feel the heat coming off of it.”