Madonna has opened up about being hospitalized and “unconscious for four days.”
Occurring in June 2023 while on tour, Madonna recalled the health scare during an interview with the On Purpose with Jay Shetty podcast on Monday, September 29.
“I was rehearsing for my tour, and I got a bacterial infection,” she told the host. “One minute I was alive and dancing around and the next minute I was in the ICU unit of a hospital and I woke up from being unconscious for four days.”
“There’s no way we’re going to escape suffering,” the singer also said. “Even if we grow up with wealth and privilege and you know, didn’t grow up in a small room, our challenges and our suffering is going to come to us in a different way.”
Madonna Suffered from Sepsis
GettyMadonna went on to further explain what she went through, saying, “I got out of the hospital, they took me off the ventilator, I started to breathe on my own, and I had something, it’s called sepsis, and it can kill you.”
According to the Cleveland Clinic, “[s]epsis occurs when your immune system has a dangerous reaction to an infection. It causes extensive inflammation throughout your body that can lead to tissue damage, organ failure and even death. Many different kinds of infections can trigger sepsis, which is a medical emergency.”
“I always saw myself as superwoman,” Madonna continued. “So, I was like, ‘Oh, I’m going to kick this. I’m going to be good. I’m getting back into rehearsals.'”
Instead, the star says she had “no strength,” “no energy,” “couldn’t get out of bed” and “didn’t know when it was going to end.”
‘Radical Acceptance’ Helped Madonna During Her Health Scare
GettyMadonna says that “radical acceptance” — a concept she learned from her Kabbalah teacher — helped her through the difficult time.
“I used to talk to my teacher all the time and he was like, ‘The sooner you accept what’s happening to you and that you don’t know when it’s going to end, the sooner it’s going to end,'” she said. “That made so much sense to me. And of course it did.”
“But I mean, I’ve heard some people never recover from it completely, never have their like full of health again,” Madonna added. “So again, it’s the same idea, same concept as sitting around feeling sorry for yourself, ‘Oh well, woe is me or poor me.’ I will not accept it. Well, then you’re just going to be swimming in suffering.”
