As details emerge about Madonna’s recent health scare, some sources are saying the Queen of Pop was far worse off than was originally acknowledged and that she had a “brush with death.”
A spokesman for the 64-year-old star announced last week that she had been hospitalized in the intensive care unit of a New York City hospital after she was discovered “unresponsive” on June 24.
However, an exclusive report by RadarOnline claimed Madonna had to be “brought back from the dead” with a Narcan injection when she was found.
Narcan is a brand name for a generic drug known as naloxone, described by the National Institutes of Health as “a medicine that rapidly reverses an opioid overdose.”
RadarOnline said the drug is also used to reverse septic shock, which it described as “a life-threatening condition that happens when blood pressure drops to a dangerously low level.”
The entertainment news outlet said Narcan “is commonly held in medical treatment kits of the rich and famous” and added that “[t]here is nothing at all to suggest Madonna] needed NARCAN for the ill effects of any drug use.”
The “Material Girl” singer’s spokesman had said that she was hospitalized for “a serious bacterial infection,” RadarOnline reported.
“She had spent days hooked up to a ventilator while her family was told to ‘expect the worst.’”
Madonna had been in rehearsals for her upcoming Celebration world tour, which had been planned to kick off July 15 in Vancouver.
“Madonna had pushed herself so hard to get ready for her 84-date world tour that she had relied upon painkillers to survive, sources said,” according to the RadarOnline report.
The U.S. Sun quoted friends of the star as saying the star was pushing herself so hard to compete with younger performers like Taylor Swift, they voiced fears she would end up like the King of Pop, Michael Jackson, who died while preparing for his “This Is It” tour in 2009.
“Many of us feel the constant remarks about her age have put pressure on her to compete, so we are relieved that she has been forced to take time out and put her health first,” the unnamed source told the celebrity gossip news outlet.
“People were really worried about her. Nobody would say it out loud but there were concerns about another Michael Jackson situation if she doesn’t slow down a bit.”
Another unnamed source, described as an “insider,” told the Sun, “She was working overtime, but she clearly burnt herself out and people around her have been politely reminding her that she is not 45 anymore, let alone 25.
“She needed to pace herself. Pushing herself so hard was extremely risky.
“But if she can get herself back in shape, the tour will have a whole lot more buzz around it, and she’s already got loads of publicity — even if it’s the wrong kind.”
An Instagram post about the incident by the star’s publicist Guy Oseary said that “at this time we will need to pause all commitments, which includes the tour. We will share more details with you as soon as we have them, including a new start date for the tour and for rescheduled shows.”
