A health scare that forced musician Donald Glover — a.k.a. Childish Gambino — to cancel the bulk of his “The New World Tour” last year was actually a stroke, he has revealed.
“You guys voted for a ‘where have I been monologue’,” the 42-year-old Glover, onstage at Tyler, the Creator’s Camp Flog Gnaw festival in Los Angeles, said Saturday night. When he canceled last year, he said he was hospitalized and had to undergo surgery, but did not elaborate.
“I had a really bad pain in my head in Louisiana, and I did the show anyway,” he said, referring to his Sept. 7, 2024, New Orleans show, barely a month after the tour’s Aug. 11 start. “I couldn’t really see well, so when we went to Houston, I went to the hospital and the doctor was like, ‘You had a stroke.’ ”
That led Glover to first postpone the tour, then cancel it altogether, having realized “my path to recovery is something I need to confront seriously,” he said in a statement after making the “difficult decision.” Still, he worried he was “letting everybody down” and thought also of fellow performer Jamie Foxx, who had suffered a brain bleed and near-fatal stroke in 2023.
A short time later, Glover broke his foot and doctors “found a hole in my heart,” he told fans on Saturday. “So I had this surgery, and then I had to have another surgery.”
Paras Griffin/Getty Images for BET
Childish Gambino performs onstage during the 2024 BET Awards on June 30, 2024 in Los Angeles. (Photo by Paras Griffin/Getty Images for BET)
The “Community” alum did not let on what the diagnosis was and where the hole in his heart had been. Atrial septal defect (ASD) is a hole between the two upper chambers of the heart, while ventricular septal defect (VSD) occurs between the two lower chambers. The hole allows blood to flow between the two, which can lead to a blood clot and cause a stroke. Both are congenital abnormalities, according to the Mayo Clinic.
A third type, patent foramen ovale (PFO), also occurs between the two upper chambers but is present in everyone at birth and usually resolves on its own, the Mayo Clinic says.
Glover focused on cherishing his life rather than dwelling on details.
“They say everybody has two lives, and the second life starts when you realize you have one,” he said Saturday. “You got one life, guys. And I gotta be honest, the life I’ve lived with you guys has been such a blessing… You should be living your life how you want. If we have to do this again, it can only get better.”
With News Wire Services
