Lionel Richie Hospitalized in St. Louis After Concert
Singer Lionel Richie (77) was hospitalized on August 29 in St. Louis after performing on tour with Earth, Wind & Fire. He was placed in intensive care, with discharge expected Tuesday, TMZ reports.
Lionel Richie (77) was hospitalized in St. Louis, TMZ reports, after falling ill following a concert on Saturday, August 29. According to sources close to the singer, he checked himself into a local hospital as soon as he stepped off the stage to undergo tests, and was placed in the intensive care unit.
The show took place at the Muny, an outdoor theater in Forest Park, as part of the “Sing a Song All Night Long” tour that Richie is co-headlining with Earth, Wind & Fire. The two acts take turns closing the show at each stop on the tour, and the St. Louis concert was a joint performance by both. Sources point to dehydration as a possible cause.
There is no dispute over the date of the show. Every source that covered the St. Louis concert agrees it took place on Saturday, August 29, the same night Richie ended up in intensive care.
“I’m dizzy,” then a chair on stage
Near the end of the concert, during the final song of the night, “All Night Long,” Richie asked his crew to bring a chair out on stage. Microphone in hand, he told the audience:
“I’m dizzy”
He sang the rest of the song seated. The band kept playing, and footage from the concert showing the musicians performing while Richie sang from the chair has been circulating widely online. Immediately after the show ended, the singer went to the hospital as a precaution, according to sources familiar with the situation cited by TMZ.
Richie was still in the hospital as of Monday afternoon. According to the same sources, his discharge was expected on Tuesday.
Something similar happened in June
This is not the first time the singer has fallen ill on stage since the current tour began. At the very opening show, on June 24 in St. Paul, Minnesota, Richie stopped the concert and told the audience he was feeling dizzy. He also finished that show seated, singing “Dancing on the Ceiling,” one of his best known hits from the 1980s. From the stage, he told the crowd:
“that’s the first time in the history of ‘Dancing on the Ceiling’ I’ve done it sitting down”
In other words, Richie told the St. Paul audience that it was the first time in the song’s history he had performed it sitting down, a nod to how long he has been singing it live and how unusual it was for him to interrupt a show.
Two incidents on the same tour, both marked by the same symptom, dizziness, and the same on-the-spot solution, a chair on stage, are now what worries his fans most heading into the tour’s next stretch.
Is the next show canceled?
So far, there has been no announcement that any upcoming dates will be canceled because of the St. Louis hospitalization. According to the tour’s official schedule, which also marks Richie’s return to major stages after his residency in Las Vegas, the next steps look like this:
- September 26, Chase Center, San Francisco
- a run of fall and winter dates per the official tour schedule
- January 30, the last currently scheduled date, Lucas Oil Live, Tuckerville, Oklahoma
The “Sing a Song All Night Long” tour, on which Richie and Earth, Wind & Fire alternate as headliners, was billed as one of the biggest concert offerings in America this year. Two incidents in under three months, both ending the same way, with the singer sitting down to finish a song, are now the story dominating conversation ahead of the September leg.
For fans who bought tickets to the fall and winter dates in advance, the singer’s health in the coming weeks remains the key question. Beyond what TMZ and sources close to Richie have reported, his team has issued no official statement about his extended stay in the St. Louis hospital.
