Fraser Olender, who’s appeared on four seasons of “Below Deck,” had been a “vape artist” until the health scare.

Matt Rogers details his Bravo star boyfriend having vape-induced heart attack in front of him

Fraser Olender, who's appeared on four seasons of "Below Deck," had been a "vape artist" until the health scare.

By Kathleen Perricone

April 16, 2026 8:05 p.m. ET

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Matt Rogers in 2022. Credit:

PATRICK T. FALLON/AFP via Getty

- Matt Rogers detailed the vape-induced heart attack his boyfriend, Fraser Olender, suffered in November just hours after the couple went public.

- Olender has been a chief steward on Bravo's *Below Deck* for four seasons.

- The health scare inspired Rogers' friend Lena Dunham to also quit her vaping habit cold turkey.

Matt Rogers got serious on his comedy podcast to warn listeners about the dangers of vaping.

On the latest episode of *Las Culturistas*, Rogers and his co-host Bowen Yang sat down with Lena Dunham for a wide-ranging interview, and the conversation shifted to vaping, an addiction the *Famesick* author gave up after hearing what Rogers' boyfriend had gone through last November.

As a cautionary tale for all, Rogers recounted the scary incident involving former "vape artist" Fraser Olender of Bravo's *Below Deck*.

Fraser Olender and Matt Rogers.

Fraser Olender/Instagram

The couple had just made their debut at BravoCon, the three-day convention sponsored by the network in Las Vegas. On social media, photos of Rogers and Olender were going viral as fans buzzed over the new romance. "As that was happening," said Rogers, "he had a heart attack in front of me."

That evening, Olender began experiencing "very intense chest pains" along with shortness of breath and just "couldn't get comfortable," remembered Rogers. "And so I'm thinking, like, is this stress and anxiety? We find out much later after tests come in that essentially because of this poison that got in his lungs, he had what was the equivalent of a heart attack. And it was really bad."

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As Rogers explained to Dunham, oil from the vape cartridge "can basically leak into your lungs and it's poison."

Olender spent a week in the hospital, recovering from what doctors diagnosed as "vape poisoning, an E-cigarette or Vaping-Associated Lung Injury," he announced on Instagram along with a carousel of photos documenting his health crisis. "I have never experienced fear or pain like it."

When Rogers texted his friend Dunham to tell her what had happened, she quit her own habit cold turkey.

"I literally took the vape and I dropped it in a cup of water so that I couldn't retrieve it, and I went, 'Today’s the day it stops,'" she recalled on *Las Culturistas*. "And I've never taken a puff since."

But it wasn't easy, she admits. It was Thanksgiving and "I spent the week alone sweating it out." That needed to happen, Dunham insisted, because vaping had put her in "a synthetic nasty mood that could not be controlled."

Roger was happy to report Olender has "remained off the vape" as well. "He's doing so much better."

Fraser Olender has appeared on four seasons of 'Below Deck' on Bravo.

Fred Jagueneau/Bravo

At the time of Olender’s health scare, he and Rogers had only been dating for three months, so the incident accelerated the new relationship.

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"We kind of did take a little bit of space just because of how intense everything had gotten," revealed Rogers, who said Olender is currently filming *Below Deck* but "I'm going to see him soon."

Watch Matt Rogers and Lena Dunham discuss the dangers of vaping below.

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Original Article on Source

Source: “EW Celebrity”