Jay Osmond, Brother of Donny and Marie Osmond, Reveals He Had a ‘Mini Stroke’

Jay Osmond, the brother of Donny and Marie Osmond and former Osmonds drummer, revealed Tuesday he recently had suffered a “mini stroke.” The 65-year-old former family band member shared the news on Facebook, saying he hadn’t mentioned his health scare earlier so as not to “alarm” anyone unnecessarily. “I didn’t want to alarm anyone so I hadn’t said this earlier,” Osmond began. “A couple of months ago, I came really close to a stroke. BP over 200. They said I had a mini stroke.”

“This was brought on by stresses I was under,” he continued, explaining that he has since been put on a medications and has “been trying to keep calm.” Lately, because of some “non-work related” stresses that have emerged in his life, Osmond revealed his blood pressure has been “a little high again,” but his “angel Karina has been helping me deal with it.” As for the reason he decided to share the news publicly now, Osmond said he had people start to ask about his health and “didn’t want the rumors to get around.”

Osmond is father to three sons from his marriage to Kandilyn Harris, to whom he was married from 1987 to 2011. In 2014, he married his current wife, Karen Randall. He hasn’t been the only Osmond to suffer health problems in recent years. Brother Jimmy Osmond also suffered a stroke back in 2018 while performing on stage in a U.K. production of Peter Pan. “On the evening of Thursday, December 27, after pushing through the evening’s performance of ‘Peter Pan’ at Birmingham Hippodrome, Jimmy Osmond was driven straight to the hospital and diagnosed with a stroke. He is grateful for all the well wishes and will be taking time out in the new year,” a rep for Osmond told The Daily Mail at the time.

Brother Donny Osmond, 62, also had to undergo shoulder surgery in January 2019. Sister Marie Osmond, 60, told PEOPLE Now when he was undergoing the procedure, “It’s been an interesting year: my brother Virl had a stroke, my brother Tom had a quadruple bypass, Jimmy had a stroke and Donny, of course, is having surgery.” She added of the difficult time in the family, “I’ve had a lot of loss in my life and difficult things. Everybody does, I’m not saying there’s any difference. But I have great faith.”