77-year-old Lionel Richie returned to an emergency operating room on September 22, 2026. This time, his heart was beating out of rhythm: he was diagnosed with atrial fibrillation, and doctors decided to act with a cardiac ablation procedure to correct the arrhythmia before it got worse.
His representative told People magazine that “everything went perfectly” and that the singer “is doing very well”. But the numbers tell a different story: this is his third hospitalization so far this year. The first was in June, in Minnesota, when he felt dizzy in the middle of a concert. The second, in late August in St. Louis, ended with three days in intensive care after he had to ask for a chair onstage because he could no longer finish singing “All Night Long”.
Now, in this third relapse, he had to cancel three shows on his tour with Earth, Wind & Fire: those in San Francisco, Chicago, and Columbus. He faces a mandatory period of rest, as the question grows of how much longer his body can keep demanding from the man who sang about love for five decades.