‘Heels’ Star Stephen Amell Reveals Surprising Positive COVID-19 Diagnosis

Former Arrow star and current Heels lead Stephen Amell stunned fans on Tuesday with a surprise announcement. He revealed that he had tested positive for COVID-19 while filming the new wrestling-centric series. Amell said that he missed three weeks of work but that he was about to return to set.

The superhero-turned-amateur wrestler made the announcement during an “emergency appearance” on Michael Rosenbaum’s podcast, Inside of You. This show is the one where Amell previously had a panic attack, which he used as an opportunity to open up to the fans. Now he is using the podcast to detail his experiences with the coronavirus, as well as how the positive diagnosis affected him.

“I started to notice something on a Monday but didn’t have a … test result,” Amell told Rosenbaum. [I] phoned up the people at CTEH, had them come to my apartment, test me. Came back positive the following Wednesday, got tested again, came back positive again. But, frankly, at that point, I didn’t need a second positive test because those first couple of days, just really … they just, they just sucked.”

Amell said during the interview that he always knew there was a possibility that he would get the coronavirus. He took every precaution, such as wearing his mask and socially distancing, to avoid this outcome. He also explained that he felt a lot of mental pressure to remain healthy due to how it would impact everyone else.

“Take it from a guy whose only sense of anxiety and panic has been the concept of contracting COVID, and I’ve never worried about the lethal aspect of it because the numbers suggest that I will get it, and maybe I’ll be asymptomatic or maybe my symptoms will be light, and I will come out the other side and I will be okay, which is what happened,” Amell said. “My anxiety came from the idea that I would be letting hundreds of people down.

“I didn’t have anxiety about the fact that I would give it to other people, which again I possibly did, which is unsettling in and of itself. But, you have to understand that because of this anxiety, I have actively, actively, actively tried to avoid contracting this virus. And guess what? I f—ing got it anyway. So be smart.”

The entire interview is available as part of the Inside of You podcast. Amell’s episode dropped Tuesday. Fans can watch on YouTube, or they can listen to the audio version. Once they listen to Amell detail facing the coronavirus, they can prepare to watch Heels, the show that covers amateur wrestling and the men and women looking to “make it big.”