Lionel Richie went into a St. Louis hospital for testing after taking the stage at the Muny on August 29, 2026. The 77-year-old singer stayed three days, was discharged on the afternoon of Wednesday, September 2, and flew home to Los Angeles, where a source close to him told People that day that he was “doing great.” He has not spoken publicly since the concert, no diagnosis has been disclosed, and nothing has changed in the two weeks since.
What he was tested for rests on a single anonymously sourced report. TMZ, citing people familiar with the situation, said he was in an intensive care unit undergoing cardiac testing, with doctors also looking into possible dehydration. No representative, hospital or physician has confirmed any of that on the record, and his representatives have issued no statement at all.
What Witnesses Saw at the Muny
For most of the evening, the show at the theater formally known as the St. Louis Municipal Opera Theatre in Forest Park played like any other Lionel Richie concert, and footage from the night suggests he was in fine voice. Witnesses described him laboring once the set reached its last songs. He asked stagehands for an ottoman so that he would not have to sing the closing number on his feet, and videos circulating online show him seated in the middle of the stage as he delivered “All Night Long (All Night),” his 1983 smash. Electrolyte drinks stayed within reach the whole night. “I’m telling you, this stuff is nasty — but it works,” he told the crowd.
Richie spelled the situation out for the audience himself, and it is the only account of his health he has given on the record. “Some things have been happening on this tour that kind of shook me up a little bit, because I couldn’t figure out what the hell was going on,” he told the crowd. “I went back to the doctor, and he said, ‘You are suffering from dehydration.’”
The concert was the theater’s annual summer-finale event, a one-night booking separate from its season proper. The Muny’s 108th season had closed six days earlier, on August 23, with “Something Rotten!”
The June Scare in St. Paul
It was the second time since June that a Richie performance ended with a hospital trip. On June 24, opening night of his “Sing a Song All Night Long” tour with Earth, Wind & Fire, he called an unannounced intermission after roughly an hour at the Grand Casino Arena in St. Paul, Minn. Dizziness had already put him in a seat earlier in the evening, during “Dancing on the Ceiling.”
“What I have learned about my years of being in the business, when you’re feeling dizzy, sit your ass down,” Richie said onstage. “And when you’re feeling strange about yourself, sit your ass down.”
His band held the stage about 15 minutes, then left. Roughly 40 minutes later his saxophonist, Dino Soldo, stepped out to speak to the audience. “Unfortunately, Lionel is not feeling well,” Soldo said. “He won’t be able to continue.” Paramedics met Richie backstage and an ambulance took him to a hospital as a precaution.
Doctors advised him to rest, and he postponed Chicago and Columbus. He was back onstage in Pittsburgh on June 30 — “I had you worried there for a minute, huh?” he told that crowd — and the remainder of the run went off without further trouble.
A Separate Emergency
One cancellation had nothing to do with Richie. John Paris, 58, the drummer for Earth, Wind & Fire since 2001, suffered a cardiac incident backstage at Chase Center in San Francisco on the evening of August 6, shortly before the band was due to play with Richie. The San Francisco Fire Department said one person was taken to a hospital in critical condition. The show was postponed, and Paris was placed in a medically induced coma.
He first woke on August 13 and asked for his wife, Kathy Merrick, then was re-sedated when his blood pressure spiked. He woke again around August 20. In its last update, on August 21, the band said recovery “isn’t a straight line,” and that he remained in intensive care facing two major surgeries before he could leave it. The nature of those surgeries was never disclosed, and there has been no word in the four weeks since. Merrick wrote that the journey “is definitely a marathon, but JP is fighting every single day and our hope is strong.”
From Tuskegee to the Rock Hall
Lionel Brockman Richie Jr. was born in Tuskegee, Ala., and his breakthrough came with the Commodores, the Motown funk and soul band out of his hometown, where he worked as a songwriter, co-lead singer and saxophonist. He wrote and sang “Easy” and “Three Times a Lady,” and took the lead on “Lady (You Bring Me Up),” which William King, Shirley Hanna-King and Harold Hudson wrote, before leaving the group in 1982 for a solo career that produced “All Night Long,” “Stuck on You” and “Hello.” His biggest seller, “Endless Love,” was a recording with Diana Ross for the soundtrack of the movie that shares its title; the duet sat at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 for nine weeks in 1981. Induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame followed in 2022. He has also been an “American Idol” judge since ABC brought the series back in 2018.
What’s on the Calendar
More work is waiting, and none of it has been called off. Earth, Wind & Fire will reunite with Richie for three makeup shows: San Francisco on September 26 — the rescheduled Chase Center date, the one Paris never played — then Chicago on September 30 and Columbus on October 2. A six-night residency at the Encore Theater at Wynn Las Vegas follows on October 14, 16 and 17 and November 11, 13 and 14. São Paulo comes on December 19 and Thackerville, Okla., on January 30.
