Lionel Richie’s Medical Condition Explained: What We Know About His Health

Lionel Richie gave his fans a scare over the weekend. The 77-year-old singer headlined The Muny in Forest Park, St. Louis, on Saturday, August 29, closing out the venue’s summer season. By the end of the night, though, he was clearly struggling on stage.

Concertgoers who witnessed the events shared with TMZ that he appeared to be struggling as the show wound down, and he asked his team to bring him a chair so he could sit while performing his final song, All Night Long.

Once he stepped off stage, the American Idol judge checked himself into a local hospital and was placed in the intensive care unit, where doctors started running tests. According to TMZ, which broke the story, they are looking into the possibility of slight dehydration. The report said that Richie was simply being cautious about his hospitalization.

A source told Rolling Stone that he is doing okay now. TMZ also reports that he is expected to be discharged and sent home on Tuesday, September 1.

Lionel Richie Has Faced Two Health Scares in Two Months

Lionel Richie | Credits: U.S. Department of State from United States, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

This isn’t the first time this summer that Lionel Richie’s health has interrupted a show. Back in June, he was rushed to the hospital after falling ill during a concert in St. Paul, Minnesota. According to TMZ, he told the crowd he was feeling “dizzy” and “strange,” and the performance was cut short about 55 minutes in.

Paramedics met him afterward and took him to a hospital. That night, too, he ended up seated on one of the stage platforms while singing Dancing on the Ceiling, a high-energy number he had never performed sitting down before.

After he left the stage, his saxophonist, Dino Soldo, came out after 40 minutes to tell the audience that Richie was unwell and would not be able to continue. He postponed the next two dates of his tour with the band Earth, Wind & Fire, but he returned soon after and finished the rest of the run without trouble.

Those postponed shows are still on the calendar. Richie and Earth, Wind & Fire are set to reunite in San Francisco, Chicago, and Columbus in September and early October. After that, he will leave for Las Vegas, where he has residency dates blocked out in October and November.

Lionel Richie Explained What Happened During His June St. Paul Concert

Lionel Richie | Credits: Eva Rinaldi, licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

While Lionel Richie was on stage in St. Louis on Saturday, he actually spoke to the crowd about what had gone wrong back in June. According to The St. Louis American, he told the audience that a few things had happened during the tour that rattled him.

He shared, “Some things have been happening on this tour that kind of shook me up a little bit, because I couldn’t figure out what the hell was going on.” Then he shared what his doctor eventually told him. Richie said he went back for a check-up and was told, “You are suffering from dehydration.”

Only hours after telling fans the mystery had been solved, Richie was in an ICU with doctors examining that same possibility all over again. For a 77-year-old performing under hot stage lights for a couple of hours, dehydration can hit harder than people expect.

What are your thoughts on Richie’s latest medical scares? Let us know in the comments below!