Zach Braff Remembers Late Friend Nick Cordero’s Life and Last Days

Zach Braff and Nick Cordero The Cast Of "Bullets Over Broadway" Performs Live On NBC's "Today"

(Photo by Getty Images)

Amanda Kloots wrote of her husband, Nick Cordero on Sunday (July 06, 2020), “God has another angel in heaven now,” announcing the devastating news of the Broadway star’s death at 41 due to coronavirus complications after 95 days in the hospital.

Cordero’s battle for life, highlighted by Kloots on Instagram with frequent updates that featured friends sending daily versions of his Rock of Ages song “Live Your Life,” showed the immense love for the actor who was the father of a 1-year-old son, Elvis.

Nick’s best friend and former co-star in Bullets Over Broadway, Zach Braff, is revealing some heartbreaking details about the Broadway actor’s final moments.

Zach Braff and Nick Cordero Preview Of Rock of Ages Hollywood At The Bourbon Room — Zach Braff and Nick Cordero attend Preview Of Rock of Ages Hollywood At The Bourbon Room on December 18, 2019 in Hollywood, California. (Photo by Vivien Killilea/Getty Images for Rock of Ages Hollywood)

“Just for clarity’s sake, he didn’t have COVID-19 anymore,” Zach said on his podcast Fake Doctors, Real Friends With Zach + Donald, which he co-hosts with Donald Faison. “What COVID did to Nick is what it does to a lot of people, it comes in and wreaks havoc on your body. Then it leaves and you don’t have it anymore, but you’re left with what the doctors called ‘lungs that look like Swiss cheese.’”

“Even to live he would’ve needed a full double-lung transplant and you only get those if you’re healthy in all other ways. So the machines were really truly keeping him alive,” Zach said. “His blood pressure wasn’t strong enough so the tips of all his fingers and toes were blackening and they would have had to have been removed had he lived.”

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Nick Cordero was 100% healthy with no pre-existing conditions when COVID-19 attacked him. He remains unconscious on life support in the ICU for over a month. His leg was amputated due to complications. Please spread the word about Nick, as the world begins to open back up, I fear far too many people assume this could never happen to themselves or their loved ones. ‘I’m young and healthy, I’ll be fine,” one might think. It’s just not the case. COVID-19 didn’t care that Nick has a wife and a little baby named Elvis and just bought his first home. It can happen to anyone.
A post shared by Zach Braff (@zachbraff) on May 6, 2020 at 9:31am PDT

Nick was on dialysis for his kidneys, a ventilator for his lungs, and would have needed a pacemaker too.

“He just deteriorated, deteriorated, deteriorated, until the point where they put him on the ventilator and then he never came back,” he added. “He kind of woke up for a little bit and there was some exciting moments where they would say, ‘Nick if you can hear us look up,’ and he would do that, but he wouldn’t do it all the time. It was only occasionally.”

Kloots stayed with Braff and his girlfriend Florence Pugh during the ordeal but he was unable to be with her in person due to social distancing. “This is how fucking tragic it was — she would be 10 feet away from us, Florence and I, and sobbing, and we couldn’t go hug her. We would literally stand 10 feet away from her and watch our friend sobbing.”