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Evening Standard
Evening Standard
Entertainment
Lisa McLoughlin

Shane MacGowan’s wife gives update on the Pogues singer after being rushed to hospital

64-year-old MacGowan has used a wheelchair since breaking his pelvis in 2015

(Picture: Getty Images)

Shane MacGowan’s wife, Victoria May Clarke, has given fans an update on his health after he was rushed to hospital last week.

Clarke first revealed on Monday that the frontman of The Pogues had been admitted to hospital and asked followers to send “prayers and healing vibes” as he was “treated for an infection”.

She tweeted: “Please send prayers and healing vibes to Shane MacGowan in hospital again and really hoping to get out asap!! Thank you.”

Taking to Twitter once again, Clarke updated fans on her husband’s health on Tuesday night, tweeting that “doctors are confident he will be OK”.

She wrote: “I just wanted to thank everyone who has been sending good wishes for @ShaneMacGowan, he is being treated for an infection and the doctors are confident that he will be ok.

“I am just incredibly grateful to them and to all of you.”

The 64-year-old has used a wheelchair since he broke his pelvis in 2015. MacGowan had also broken his knee last year after falling in his home, which left him bedridden.

He has since been in and out of hospital in the past few years after not fully recovering from his injuries, confirming in April that he was unable to walk.

MacGowan co-wrote one of the most famous Christmas songs, Fairytale of New York, in 1987.

The song was written after Elvis Costello bet MacGowan that he couldn’t write a Christmas song.

The yuletide hit is an Irish folk-style ballad that went through many rewrites, aborted attempts at recording, and even lost its original female vocalist along the way, before finally being completed with Kirsty MacColl as the female lead vocalist alongside MacGowan.

In December 2020, the song was a certified quadruple platinum in the UK and is frequently cited as the best Christmas song of all time in various television, radio and magazine-related polls in the UK and Ireland.

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