BIG news from Kelsey Grammer and Patricia Heaton – who co-starred in the now-canceled Fox sitcom, “Back to You.”

Grammer says the mild heart attack he suffered last month was because the show was axed – while Heaton is being considered as Ricki Lake’s replacement on the ABC sitcom, “The Middle.”

“It was a very stressful time for me, and a surprise to me [that the show was canceled],” Grammer told People magazine.

On “The Middle,” Heaton would play the matriarch of a middle-class Midwestern family.