Madonna To Kick Off Rescheduled Celebration World Tour In UK After Health Scare

Madonna has announced rescheduled dates for her upcoming tour - with her her first performance to take place in London.

The Queen of Pop's Celebration tour, marking 40 years in the music industry, will now kick off at the sold-out O2 arena on 14 October, three months after it was originally supposed to begin in Canada.

The 64-year-old singer was forced to postpone the North American leg of her tour after she came down with a serious bacterial infection in late June.

The Hung Up singer spent several days in intensive care and continued her recovery at home - but now her shows can go ahead as entertainment company Live Nation confirmed her tour dates.

Her European leg will be as planned, commencing in London over four days in October.

In a space of less than two months she will travel to Denmark, Spain, Portugal, Paris and other major European cities before culminating in the O2 once again with two more concerts in December.

Madonna will then fly to North America where New York will host her on 13 December, before she takes the stage in Boston, Toronto and LA, ending up in Mexico City in April next year.

Due to the rescheduling, five North American shows were cancelled including a December gig in Nashville, Tennessee, and one in January in Las Vegas.

A week ago, Madonna had posted a positive update to ticketholders as she posed in front of the camera in several outfits.

She wrote:

"All dressed up and nowhere to go... But soon, very soon, I'll be traveling to you."

Before that, Madonna expressed gratitude saying she felt "lucky to be alive" following the health scare and praised her children who had supported her throughout the ordeal.

On Instagram, the star wrote:

"When the chips were down my children really showed up for me. I saw a side to them I had never seen before. It made all the difference."

In a previous post where she was "on the road to recovery", she thought of her fans as she said:

"I did not want to disappoint anyone who bought tickets for my tour."

Madonna has had a number of previous health scares impacting her performance schedule.

In 2019, she cancelled dates on her Madam X tour on "doctors' orders" after suffering "overwhelming pain".

She also pulled out of the first London show of the Madam X tour, scheduled for January 2020, after revealing she had been "plagued" with injuries since the beginning of the tour.

https://news.sky.com/story/madonna-to-kick-off-rescheduled-celebration-world-tour-in-uk-after-health-scare-12940821