Rock 'n' roll legend Little Richard is recovering after recently suffering a heart attack while at home with his family.

The Tutti Frutti singer, who turned 80 last year, reveals he was overcome with a coughing fit and started to feel a shooting pain in his arm and it was only after self-medicating that he started to feel OK.

His doctor later advised him that he had suffered a heart attack, and revealed that he saved his own life with his quick-thinking actions.

During a chat with Cee Lo Green for a Recording Academy fundraiser in Georgia on Sunday, he explained, "The other night, I didn't know I was having a heart attack. I was coughing, and my right arm was aching. I told my son, 'Make the room as cold as ice.' So he turned the air conditioning on, and I took a baby aspirin. The doctor told me that saved my life. Jesus had something for me. He brought me through."

The veteran entertainer has stepped away from performing since almost collapsing on stage during a gig in Washington, D.C. last summer.