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Lionel Richie Health Update: What We Know as Singer Hospitalized
0 Share Newsweek is a Trust Project member See more of our trusted coverage when you search. Prefer Newsweek on Google to see more of our trusted coverage when you search. Lionel Richie has been hospitalized in St. Louis following a performance on Saturday night, according to reports.
The 77-year-old Grammy Award-winning singer, who is on the Sing a Song All Night Long Tour with the Earth, Wind & Fire, had performed on Saturday at the Muny. Richie spoke about dehydration during the performance and drank electrolytes multiple times.
"I'm telling you, this stuff is nasty, but it works," he said in a video recording of the concert shared on social media by the St. Louis American .
Richie performed the show without an intermission and was on his feet up until the finale song, "All Night Long." He then asked stage workers to bring him a chair and completed the song sitting down, according to TMZ, which first reported the news of his hospitalization.
Newsweek has contacted a representative for Richie for comment via email outside normal business hours.
Earlier this summer, Richie cut a concert short in St. Paul, Minnesota, after he fell ill onstage.
On June 24, as he performed in the first show of the tour, Richie told the crowd he was feeling dizzy.
He performed his hit song "Dancing on the Ceiling" while sitting down, and he joked that he had never done so before, The Minnesota Star Tribune reported at the time.
He said, "When you're feeling dizzy, sit your a** down."
He then sat at the piano to perform "Three Times a Lady" and took an impromptu intermission.
Richie postponed two shows in the immediate aftermath.
In a July 4 Instagram post, Richie reassured fans that he was "doing well." He said was grateful and thanked fans for their well-wishes.
Older adults are biologically more vulnerable to dehydration because aging reduces total body water stores, weakens the sensation of thirst and can impair the kidneys' ability to conserve fluid, according to the Mayo Clinic.
Many older adults don't feel thirsty until they become dehydrated, so it's important to increase water intake.
While drinking more fluids will aid mild to moderate dehydration, severe dehydration requires swift medical treatment.
For adults, dehydration symptoms may include the following:
Additional risk factors are at play for older touring performers, who are physically exerting themselves under hot stage lights.
More broadly, being on tour can interrupt schedules and make eating and drinking patterns irregular.
Physicians may monitor older patients closely because dehydration can contribute to confusion, falls, kidney problems and electrolyte imbalances, and dehydration has been linked to longer hospital stays and increased need for intensive care in some cases.
Richie is next scheduled to perform on September 26 in San Francisco.
Contact Newsweek editors on this story: Matthew Robinson and Shakeema Edwards .
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