‘Life is Beautiful’: Madonna Looks Back on Anniversary of Near-Death Health Scare

Madonna celebrated a year since overcoming a life-threatening illness for her Fourth of July, taking to Instagram to look back on her “miraculous recovery” from a serious infection that hospitalized her.

“Happy 4th of July! A year ago today, I had just come home from the hospital after surviving a life threatening illness, I could barely stand in my backyard holding one sparkler,” the singer wrote on Friday. “I made a miraculous recovery and had an amazing year. Thank you God. Life is beautiful!”

Madonna was in the intensive care unit for several days in late June of 2023 over what her manager Guy Oseary said at the time was “a serious bacterial infection.” She was placed in a medically-induced coma for four days, pausing her Celebration tour for several months until last October.

“It’s called a near-death experience, and I’m not kidding, it was pretty scary,” the singer told a crowd of fans during a concert in Los Angeles this past March. “Obviously, I didn’t know for four days because I was in an induced coma, but when I woke up, the first word I said was, ‘No.’ Anyway, that’s what my assistant tells me.” 

“I’m pretty sure that God was saying to me, ‘You want to come with? You want to come with us, wanna go this way?’” she told the crowd. “And I said, ‘No!’” 

Since the health scare, Madonna has faced a handful of lawsuits stemming from her Celebration tour. Concertgoers at several dates sued her as well as promoter Live Nation in recent months over delayed start times. The plaintiffs alleged that she started hours after the advertised start time, which they claimed was false advertising. The first suit, filed by two attendees from her show in Brooklyn, was dismissed last month.