I’ve always recognized actor Mehcad Brooks (True Blood, Necessary Roughness, Supergirl) for being very attractive, however I always felt his acting abilities left much to be desired. I eventually loosened up my criticism and realized that not every actor (or every person) has to be exceptional at all things. 

Young Mehcad worked hard on his body, realized that he could make a living playing the beefcake on television and made it happen. Inner voice said to me: “Who cares if he’s not on Denzel Washington’s level of range and skills? Let this Black man be sexy and eat, Nick!”

So I stopped raising my eyebrows in skepticism whenever he popped up in a show or film and accepted that his real talent is being eye candy. Granted, he’s not my really my IRL type (yes, I like the twinks and twunks) but he’s still undoubtedly a good looking man. And I imagined that his life being a working actor was probably pretty fucking great as a result.

Little did I know that Mehcad had actually gone through serious medical issues from a parasite that he picked up while working in Morocco over 10 years ago that ultimately led to him dying…then coming back to life. So all while he was filming True Blood, he had this parasite inside of him, slowly killing him and causing intense pain to his entire body (including his eyelashes).

After poking and prodding, the doctors informed him that given that he was untreated for so long, he should have been dead 28 weeks after first contracting the parasite.

In the video below, Mehcad describes the whole story, what his last moments were like before dying and how his outlook on life changed after recovering from the illness.

The main takeaway for me was that he no longer felt jealousy for others after dying and returning to the land of the living. This was a great reinforcement to my own recent change of thinking on envy and jealousy (from social media in my case). I love the way Mehcad summarizes jealousy: “The negative expression of your vivid imagination.”

Not only should we not be jealous of others (what’s meant for you is meant for you), but also the “perfection” of others’ lives that we perceive may not be the full story (Example: Mehcad almost died before he had even turned 30, at the height of his popularity.)

While I have no interest in seeing his new film on Netflix, “Tyler Perry’s A Fall From Grace,” I’m looking forward to seeing him in the role of Major Jackson ‘Jax’ Briggs in the new Mortal Kombat film reboot.