Madonna Reveals the First Word She Said After Waking Up from a 4-Day Coma Last Summer

While performing her first of five sold-out shows in Los Angeles, the Queen of Pop reflected on her 2023 hospitalization

Madonna is feeling grateful for her health.

During a reflective moment onstage at the first of her five sold-out Celebration World Tour shows at Los Angeles' Kia Forum, the Queen of Pop opened up about her hospitalization last year following a serious bacterial infection.

"This show every night is not really so hard on me physically. It's hard on me emotionally because I'm really telling you the story of my life. My heart is on my sleeve," she said. "I've fallen off a lot of horses and broken a lot of bones ... but nothing can stop me."

Referencing her health scare last summer, the singer called it a "near-death experience" and revealed the "first word" she said was "No" when she woke up from an induced coma after four days.

"I'm pretty sure that was God saying to me, 'Do you want to come? Want to come up with me? No,'" Madonna continued, drawing laughs from the audience.

She later recalled a conversation she had with her longtime manager, Guy Oseary, while she was in the hospital. "He said, 'Well, when do you think you want to go back on tour?' I took the oxygen out of my nose. I looked at him, and I said, 'in two f---ing months!" she said. "I just said it. Sometimes you just have to say s--- [and] put it out in the universe. And it happens."

Madonna also gave a shoutout to one of her doctors, who was in attendance at the concert.

"I would call in every other day and ask [my doctor] why I didn't have any energy, when was my energy going to come back? When was I going to feel like myself again? When can I go on tour again?" she said. "All he would say is, 'Go outside in the sun' ... It was so hard for me to walk from my house to the backyard and sit in the sun. I know that sounds insane, but it was difficult."

Madonna told fans the scary ordeal forced her to slow down. "It's a strange thing to finally not feel like I was in control, and that was my lesson: to let go."

Related: Madonna Talks Her 'Crazy Year' Onstage at Celebration Tour Launch — and Leads Singalong for Lourdes' Birthday

Ultimately, said the superstar, it was her loved ones who gave her strength to get back onstage. "My children are what really helped me pull through because they worked so hard. I didn't want to let them down, so I just set a date. And that date became reality," she said.

As they have throughout her tour, Madonna's kids showed off their talents onstage throughout the show, where stars like Dita Von Teese were spotted dancing and singing along in the audience.

Mercy joined her mom on the piano for "Bad Girl," earning enthusiastic cheers from the audience. Estere deejayed and pumped up the crowd during the fan-favorite "Vogue" section, while Stella appeared onstage during "Don't Tell Me," and David sang and played guitar on "Mother and Father."

Last October the Grammy winner, 65, kicked off her long-awaited tour at London's O2 Arena, where she also opened up about her road back to the stage.

"I didn't think I was gonna make it. Neither did my doctors. That's why I woke up with all of my children sitting around me," she said of her kids Lourdes, 27, Rocco, 23, David, 18, Mercy, 18, and twins Stella and Estere, 11. "But the angels were protecting me, and my children were there. And my children always save me every time."

Madonna is scheduled to tour through the end of April, when she will wrap her latest musical spectacle with five shows at Mexico City's Palacio De Los Deportes.

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