Madonna Reveals New Details of Near-Death Experience: 'I Thought of My Mother'

Madonna has bounced back like never before with her acclaimed Celebration tour, but she hasn't forgotten just how close she came to losing it all.

At her Saturday show in Brooklyn, the Queen of Pop took time out to address the crowd about nearly dying of a bacterial infection in June in a moving speech that gave credit where credit is due.

"I do not take anything for granted," she said, decked out in her "Don't Tell Me" western costume. "There are some very important people in this room tonight that were with me in the hospital. There's one very important woman who dragged me to the hospital. I don't even remember — I passed out in my bathroom, I woke up in the ICU."

Her comments marked the first time she got specific about her illness, and they contradict rumors that she had to be revived at her home by first responders.

"Thank you, Shavawn," she said warmly. "She saved my life."

Shavawn Gordon-Rissman is the wife of her former gardener who she tapped to direct the 2008 doc about Malawi, "I Am Because We Are," Nathan Rissman.

Shavawn, a close friend of Madonna's, was also her children's nanny.

She went on to thank Eitan Yardeni, her Kabbalah teacher. "I was in an induced coma for 48 hours, and the only voice I heard was his. I heard him say, 'Squeeze my hand.'"

Madonna said she regained consciousness to see her six kids surrounding her, and was filled with sadness realizing she had almost had to leave them when they're still young — much like her own mom left her when she was 5.

"The first thing that went through my head was my mother," she said. "My mother died, of cancer, and she was by herself, and I was thinkin', 'What if I left my children?' That would destroy me to leave my children at this moment in their lives."

Four of the icon's six kids — David, 18, Mercy, 17, and twins Stella and Estere, 11 — perform with her on Celebration.

"How scared she must have been to know that she was going to leave us all behind," she said of her mother and namesake Madonna Ciccone, who died in 1963, and who was survived by her husband and their six kids. Madonna's dad remarried and added two more children to the brood.

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After the singer's close call, she postponed her Celebration tour launch and took a few months off to recuperate, a far shorter recovery time than most would take. By the time the tour kicked off in London in October, she was in fine form, and received some of the best reviews of her career.

After 31 dates, the Celebration tour continues Tuesday night in Washington, D.C. After that, she's got another 47 dates, concluding in April 2024 with five shows in Mexico City.