Tamar Braxton Opens Up About Husband's Nearly Deadly Health Scare: 'You've Got to Get Checked'

After an emotional performance on Dancing with the Stars on Monday, Tamar Braxton opened up to her The Real co-hosts about the inspiration behind the performance – er husband’s 2012 health crisis.

While Braxton said her husband Vince Herbert is doing “amazing” today, there was a time that the star was worried she was going to lose him forever.

“I get so choked up,” she said on Wednesday. “He had seven blood clots and what I do want to say about that is you’ve got to be really careful. You’ve got to get checked to make sure that your blood is not too thick.”

Braxton said on DWTS that Herbert had to be induced into a coma and was hospitalized for 40 days.

The reality star espoused the importance of keeping up blood circulation and advised even those without Herbert’s condition to never just “sit for hours.”

“If you don’t have a condition, you can still get blood clots and it goes straight to your heart and it kills you,” she said. “I just remember that he was just so strong, you know, and although it was the most horrible time in my life, he was still my hero. He was very heroic. He didn’t let me know he was in pain.”

The 38-year-old, whose sister Toni Braxton cheered her on from the DWTS audience Monday, told her co-hosts that the only reason she realized her husband was sick at the time was because he began “gasping” for breath.

She also said the traumatic health crisis was the inspiration for the song “King.”

Braxton’s DWTS performance, which featured Herbert on piano, earned her straight nines from the judges.

“I just wanted to do a great job so Vince could have this memory for the rest of his life,” Braxton told PEOPLE after the performance.