Lionel Richie is back, baby! The R&B legend and “American Idol” judge performed in Las Vegas on November 11, 2026, in his first concert since being sidelined by a heart condition that landed him in the hospital multiple times this summer and required a heart procedure in September.
Richie, who has been spotted filming Season 25 auditions in Savannah, Georgia, looked healthy and happy during the first of several November shows at the Wynn Las Vegas, thanking his fans for their support and, as the crowd cheered his return, repeatedly shouting, “I’m back!”
Lionel Richie Kept Things Light as He Acknowledged His Health Challenges
In videos circulating on social media the morning after his November 11 return, Richie, 77, can be seen joking to the audience, “I don’t know where I was, but I’m back!”
In one video shared by Las Vegas Review-Journal columnist John Katsilometes, Richie told the crowd, “People stopping me on the street: ‘Welcome back, Lionel!’ And I keep telling them, ‘I ain’t been nowhere.’ You know, this is the greatest thing in the world, is to pretend like you’ve been somewhere and you show back up, and I hear more people say, ‘Oh, God bless you.’ And I say, ‘Well, what the heck went wrong?'”
“I’m doing just fine,” he assured his fans. “Thank you all for caring about me.”
The “Dancing on the Ceiling” hitmaker continued, “It was great, it was wonderful, I learned a lot from this experience. I discovered the most important, shocking thing was that, you know when you grow up, if you have a problem, you take all your problems to old people? I don’t know no old people.”
As the crowd laughed, he explained, “I called up my classmates on the phone from college. They the oldest folks I know, and they (were) having the same problem I was having. So I figured at this point right now, what I’ll do is just share that if you haven’t had it, come see me. I know a lot about everything now.”
“But the most important part is I’m back,” Richie said, noting that when he had to come up with a name for his series of shows at the Wynn, he decided, “I want to make a tribute tonight to me! I better make a tribute to myself before somebody else (does) that.”
“This is gonna be a whole week of celebrating Lionel Richie,” he quipped, and went on to perform his many hits, from “Brick House” to closing the show with “All Night Long.”
What Happened to Lionel Richie?
Richie had multiple health scares over the summer, as he toured with Earth, Wind & Fire. In June, during the first show of the tour in Minneapolis, Richie was hospitalized after he started feeling dizzy and had to sit down during the concert, and he had to cancel his next two concerts.
In late August, he began struggling again during a concert in St. Louis. After checking himself into a local hospital, he spent several days in the ICU.
In September, a rep confirmed that Richie needed an ablation to treat atrial fibrillation, commonly known as Afib. A cardiac ablation is a “minimally invasive procedure that creates scars to stop the electrical impulses that cause irregular heart rhythms,” according to the Cleveland Clinic.
Richie currently has four more shows scheduled at the Wynn Las Vegas, on November 13 and 14 and then on January 8 and 9, 2027.
Lionel Richie Breaks His Silence During 1st Concert Since Heart Procedure: ‘I Learned A Lot’