Donald Glover, who performs under the name Childish Gambino, has revealed he had a stroke last year which forced him to cancel world tour dates.
At the time the 42-year-old said he was dealing with an “ailment” after performing in New Orleans and had gone to a hospital in Houston, where he discovered he needed surgery. He subsequently postponed, then entirely cancelled the remainder of his US tour, as well as all of his UK, European and Australian dates, writing: “Unfortunately, my path to recovery is taking longer than expected.”
While performing at Tyler, the Creator’s Camp Flog Gnaw festival in Los Angeles on Saturday night, Glover told the audience that he’d had a stroke.
“I was doing this world tour,” he said. “I was having lots of fun, really loving seeing you guys out there.
“I had a really bad pain in my head in Louisiana and I did the show anyway. 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.’
“And the first thing I thought was like, ‘Oh, here I am still copying Jamie Foxx,’” he joked, referring to Foxx’s stroke in 2023. “That’s really like the second thing. The first thing was like, ‘I’m letting everybody down.’ I know it’s not true.”
Glover also revealed that he had broken one of his feet, then doctors found a hole in his heart, which required him to undergo surgery twice.
“They say everybody has two lives and the second life starts when you realise you have one,” Glover said. “You got one life, guys, and I gotta be honest, the life I’ve lived with you guys has been such a blessing.”
Glover, who has won five Grammy awards, has retired his Childish Gambino stage name after releasing his final album, Bando Stone & the New World. The tour was to be his farewell to Childish Gambino.
