Patti Smith shares health update after being rushed to hospital with ‘sudden illness’

Punk icon was rushed to hospital following a ‘sudden illness’ in Italy

Patti Smith has offered fans a health update after she was rushed to hospital following a “sudden illness”.

On Tuesday (12 December), before the 76-year-old punk icon was due to perform at the Duse Theatre in Bologna, Italy, the venue posted a notice on Instagram announcing that the show was cancelled “due to a sudden illness that struck the artist”.

Smith, who was held under “a short period of observation in emergency” at Maggiore hospital in Bologna, was soon discharged “in good health” on Wednesday (13 December) evening, according to Italian authorities.

The “Because the Night” singer shared her own update on Instagram on Thursday, with a photo of her surrounded by hospital staff.

“This is thanking all at the hospital for their help and guidance. I am so sorry that we had to cancel concerts in Bologna and Venice. I will return to fulfill my happy obligations,” she wrote in the caption.

“This is also to thank all the medical teams globally, who attend to the people’s needs, especially those altruistically serving under fire, all healers, physicians, nurses, attendants,” Smith added.

“Also I want to thank everyone for sending messages of love and concern. I am resting, as the doctor ordered, grateful to have had such care, though being painfully aware that many are not so fortunate.”

Known as the punk poet laureate, Smith most recently played at the Modena Cathedral on Saturday, as part of an eight-date tour around Italy.

She is next scheduled to play at the Malibran Theatre in Venice on Thursday night.

In a 2020 interview with The Guardian, Smith revealed that she struggled during the pandemic because she suffers from a lifelong bronchial condition.

“To be in limbo almost 10 months, for a person like me who doesn’t like sitting in the same place, it’s been very challenging. I feel like I’m part-wolf, roaming from room to room,” she said.

Smith first rose to prominence in the early Seventies when she released her critically adored debut album, Horses, in 1976. Her biggest hit, “Because the Night” written with Bruce Springsteen hit No 13 on the US charts in 1978.

She has since released a number of books, including her best-selling memoir Just Kids, in which she details her early life in New York with her lover and friend Robert Mapplethorpe, and a follow-up, M Train.

For her 74th birthday in 2021, she celebrated the occasion with a performance aired on screens at Picadilly Circus in London, where she read a new poem dedicated to climate activist Greta Thunberg.