Florence Welch has revealed she almost died after suffering a devastating ectopic pregnancy.
The Florence + The Machine singer, 39, cancelled a string of live shows in 2023 after undergoing life-saving emergency surgery, but at the time only told fans it was for “reasons I don’t really feel strong enough to go into yet.”
Now, in a candid interview with The Guardian, Welch has spoken for the first time about the ordeal — and how she had been expecting her first child with her on-off musician boyfriend at the time.
Conceiving at 37, she said, was “a big shock” but also “magical.” Yet early in the pregnancy, which the couple had kept private, Welch recalled: “I had an ectopic pregnancy, on stage.”
She described the experience as “devastating,” adding: “I think, because it was my first time being pregnant, and it was my first miscarriage, I was like, OK, I’ve heard this is part of it.”
An ectopic pregnancy occurs when a fertilised egg implants outside the womb, most commonly in a fallopian tube. It affects one in every 80–90 pregnancies in the UK — around 11,000 each year — and sadly always has to be terminated.
Welch said she first visited a doctor when she started bleeding before a show, admitting she “started to panic” when the doctor paused during her examination.
“I had a Coke can’s worth of blood in my abdomen,” she said. She was rushed into emergency surgery within the hour, but doctors were unable to save her fallopian tube.
Reflecting on the moment, Welch admitted: “If I’d got on that plane, I’d have come off on a stretcher. Or worse.”
At the time, the singer cancelled performances at Zurich Open Air Festival on 25 August and Rock En Seine in Paris the following day. The band’s last performance that year was headlining Boardmasters in Cornwall on 13 August.
Welch said she tried to find strength in performing through her grief. “I was in the elements, in the wind and rain, and I just felt something working through me. I felt this thing take over, the thing that’s always there, the safe space of performance.”
It was not the first time she had been forced to cancel shows. In 2022, she scrapped UK tour dates after breaking her foot, though she clarified later that her feet were fine — it was the emergency surgery that had saved her life.
In a statement to fans at the time, Welch wrote: “I’m so sorry that I had to cancel the last couple of shows. My feet are fine, I had to have emergency surgery for reasons I don’t really feel strong enough to go into yet, but it saved my life. And I will be back to close out the Dance Fever tour in Lisbon and Malaga (maybe not jumping so much but you can do that for me).
“Suffice to say I wish the songs were less accurate in their predictions. But creativity is a way of coping, mythology is a way of making sense.”
