Country music star suffers heart attack after Gilbert show

GILBERT, AZ (AZFamily) — Country music star Colt Ford reportedly suffered a heart attack after performing at a popular Gilbert bar Thursday night.

According to a spokesperson for Ford, he had the heart attack after performing at Dierks Bentley’s Whiskey Row and is now in the Intensive Care Unit at the Banner Desert Medical Center in Mesa. He was scheduled to perform in New Mexico on Friday.

Multiple music outlets have reported that Ford has a long history of health problems, including eye cancer and an autoimmune disease known as myasthenia gravis.

The disorder “affects the muscles in your face, your eyes, and your throat. It hadn’t really affected my throat, but it really affected my eye. I had no control over my right eye. It really messes with your vision. I could see perfectly out of either eye, but then I would look together and I’d see three of you and you would be melting together like a lava lamp,” Ford told Taste of Country in 2023.

A Gilbert family says they met Ford on his tour bus before the show, and says everything during the show seemed normal. They were surprised to wake up to the news about the singer.

“We actually saw Colt Ford last June in Idaho, and I would say this concert was just as energetic, just as fun,” said Randi Whitmer, who attended the concert with her family. “His whole performance was just full of energy and just as great as his other shows we’ve seen.”

Ford is a multi-platinum singer-songwriter hailing from Athens, Georgia. He is also known for originally recording Jason Aldean’s “Dirt Road Anthem.”

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