Madonna has revealed she was put in an induced coma for 48 hours while she was hospitalised with a bacterial infection.
The singer, 65, was performing her Celebration tour in Brooklyn, New York, on Saturday night when she opened up about her terrifying health scare in June that saw her admitted to intensive care after suffering lung and kidney failure.
Addressing the crowd, Madonna gave a personal shout out to her friend Shavawn, saying: ‘There are some very important people in the room tonight that were with me at the hospital. There’s one very important woman who dragged me to the hospital.
‘I don’t even remember; I passed out on my bathroom floor and woke up in the ICU… I was in an induced coma for 48 hours. She saved my life. Thank you Shavawn.’
Madonna, who has followed Kabbalah – a mystical offshoot of Judaism – since 1996 went on to thank her Kabbalah teacher, who was by her side at the hospital, saying his was ‘the only voice I heard’ while she was in a coma.
Madonna has revealed she was put in an induced coma for 48 hours while she was hospitalised with a bacterial infection (pictured at her Washington DC show on Monday)
The singer, 65, was performing her Celebration tour in Brooklyn, New York, on Saturday night when she opened up about her terrifying health scare in June
She revealed: ‘The only voice I heard was his. I heard him say, “Squeeze my hand.”‘
Madonna, who is the mother of Lourdes, 27, Rocco, 23, David, 18, Mercy James, 17, and twins Estere and Stelle, 11, went on to thank her children for being by her side in the hospital.
She continued: ‘When I first became conscious and I saw my six incredible children sitting around me – by the way, I had to almost die to get all my kids in one room.’
Madonna had her first child Lourdes with then-partner Carlos Leon – an actor and personal trainer in 1996.
She shares her eldest son Rocco with her ex-husband Guy Ritchie, with the pair welcoming Rocco in August 2000, shortly after they married.
Madonna and Guy adopted David from an orphanage in Malawi’s capital, Lilongwe, in 2006.
Chifundo, ‘Mercy,’ James, 17, was adopted by Madonna when she was a single mother, in 2009, again from Malawi.
Most recently, Madonna adopted twin daughters Stella and Estere Ciccone, who were born in Malawi in August 2012, but adopted five years later in 2017.
The Celebration Tour was meant to begin in mid-July with a North American leg that would sweep through over 20 cities in the United States and Canada.
However, that leg had to be delayed after Madonna’s health took a sudden downturn that struck terror into the hearts of her global fanbase.
She was confined to the ICU for several days after contracting what her manager announced was a ‘serious bacterial infection.’
The Celebration Tour was meant to begin in July with a North American leg that would sweep through over 20 cities in the United States and Canada but was delayed by her hospitalisation
Madonna shared: ‘I don’t even remember; I passed out on my bathroom floor and woke up in the ICU… I was in an induced coma for 48 hours’
Madonna, who has followed Kabbalah – a mystical offshoot of Judaism – since 1996 went on to thank her Kabbalah teacher, who was by her side at the hospital
Madonna gave a shout out to her friend Shavawn, saying: ‘I passed out on my bathroom floor and woke up in the ICU… I was in an induced coma for 48 hours. She saved my life’
A report in Radar Online sensationally alleged that she suffered acute septic shock and was revived with Narcan, which is typically used to treat overdoses.
She is currently on the American leg of her tour and shared a slew of behind-the-scenes snaps ahead of her Washington DC gig on Monday.
Madonna has been telling fans about her hospital ordeal and while onstage in Paris, she said: ‘I was in the hospital. I was in the ICU. My lungs weren’t working, I wasn’t breathing on my own.’
She went on: ‘My kidneys were failing. I was infected with some bacteria that nobody knows about. And there is a 40% mortality rate.’
Madonna recalled: ‘When I woke up I saw all my children around me and I thought this is what will save me. My children will save me. It’s not me who saved them.’
Guy Oseary, who has been her manager since 2005 and was her business partner before that, raced to her bedside when her health plummeted.
‘My manager came to me and he was weeping next to me. I came home from the hospital two weeks later, and nobody knew when I would get better. “He was like ‘do you want to go back on the road? Do you want your tour to happen?”‘ said Madonna.
‘I was breathing oxygen through a cannula through my nose, I could barely get out of bed to walk to the bathroom and I said ‘give me two weeks to think about it.’
She reflected: ‘You know, I think of myself as Wonder Woman. I think I can overcome anything, anything but this time I could bring the will.’
Madonna added: ‘I didn’t have the strength. I had no energy, it was taken from me. So the two weeks went by and I still had barely any energy. I could drink espressos, four Red Bulls. Nothing woke me up. I had no life force.’
However her ‘children saved me,’ the Express Yourself singer reiterated. ‘They made me keep going and I recovered faster than most people would.’
Brood of six: Madonna is a proud mother of six children (L-R in 2021: Twins Stella and Estere, Lourdes, Madonna, Mercy, Rocco and David) and thanked them for being by her side