Lionel Richie Asked for a Chair So He Could Finish the Song Sitting Down. Then He Checked Himself Into the ICU.

By the time Lionel Richie got to his last song at The Muny in St. Louis on Saturday night, something had changed. He asked his team to bring him a chair. Then he sat down to finish it.

People in the crowd noticed. He'd looked like he was struggling for the back half of the show, they said, pushing through a set he's performed hundreds of times before. He got through the song. Then, instead of heading back to his hotel, he checked himself into a St. Louis hospital.

He's currently in the ICU as a precaution while doctors run tests, with mild dehydration the leading suspicion so far. His team expects him out by Tuesday. But this is the second time in three months a Richie concert has ended this way.

In June, about an hour into a show in St. Paul, Minnesota, he stopped mid-performance of "Dancing on the Ceiling," sat down on a stage platform, and told the crowd exactly what was happening to him.

That night ended with a fire department transport to the hospital and two postponed shows in Chicago and Columbus, announced with a note that he'd been "advised by doctors to rest and return to full health." He came back a few weeks later, thanked fans for their messages, and kept touring.

The June incident happened mid-song, in front of everyone, with Richie narrating his own symptoms in real time. Saturday's was quieter. He made it to the end of the set, on a chair instead of his feet, and the decision to go to the hospital happened afterward, on his own initiative, out of what his team is calling caution rather than emergency.

Two summers, two hospital visits, one performer who keeps choosing to finish the show before dealing with whatever his body is telling him. Whether that's determination or something he needs to stop doing is exactly the question his team hasn't answered yet.

No word yet on whether any additional tour dates will be affected while he recovers. His representatives haven't issued a statement beyond confirming the precautionary admission. For now, the plan is testing, rest, and a hoped-for discharge within days, the same playbook that got him back on stage in June.