Florence Welch detailed her experience with pregnancy loss in a new interview, revealing she “nearly died” from severe complications while on tour.
On Saturday, September 27, the Florence + the Machine singer, 39, opened up to The Guardian about suffering a miscarriage in August 2023. Days after the loss, after performing through the pain, Welch learned she had an ectopic pregnancy.
“The closest I came to making life was the closest I came to death,” she said. “And I felt like I had stepped through this door, and it was just full of women, screaming.”
According to the Mayo Clinic, an ectopic pregnancy occurs when a fertilized egg is implanted in a fallopian tube rather than the uterus. These pregnancies are completely non-viable and can cause massive internal bleeding, the loss of the tube and, if left untreated, death.
Welch learned she was pregnant in the summer of 2023. (She and her musician boyfriend, whom she prefers to keep anonymous, have been dating on and off since 2011.)
“It was my first experience of even trying to get pregnant, and I thought, there’s no way, because I’m ancient,” she told The Guardian, as she was about to turn 37. “It was a big shock. But it felt magical, as well. I felt I had followed a bodily instinct, in that animal sense, and it had happened.”
Shortly after learning she was pregnant, Welch discovered she had miscarried. A reported one in four pregnancies will end in a miscarriage, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), though experts believe the number to be higher as pregnant people can miscarry without ever knowing they are expecting.
“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. I spoke to my doctor, and they are not generally dangerous. Devastating, but not dangerous,” she said of her pregnancy loss.
So, she moved ahead with plans to headline a festival in Cornwall, performing a week later.
“Emotionally, I was sad and scared, but I think, also, I was coping,” Welch explained, adding that she was feeling unwell, bleeding heavily and in a considerable amount of pain before the show. She took some ibuprofen and, at the guidance of her doctor, made an appointment for when she returned home to London.
As she performed in inclement weather, Welch felt the pain subside and basked in the rush of the crowd. “I was in the elements, in the wind and rain, and I just felt something working through me, And I felt this thing take over, the thing that’s always there, the safe space of performance,” she said.
When she arrived back home, the pain wasn’t as severe but she decided to go get checked regardless.
“Do you know the f***ed-up thing?” she questioned. “I didn’t want to go for the scan. I thought, I’ve done this show, I’m fine, I can cope. But my doctor’s insistence that I come in saved my life.”
Welch learned that her fallopian tube had ruptured.
“I had a Coke can’s worth of blood in my abdomen,” she said, noting that she had to have emergency surgery and, despite efforts, the surgeons couldn’t save her fallopian tube.
Florence canceled a handful of festival shows, posting a note via Instagram at the time revealing she was recovering from a surgery that saved her life.
“If I’d got on that plane, I’d have come off on a stretcher. Or worse,” she told The Guardian of canceling the shows in Zurich and outside Paris.
“I think the sound that came out of me was like a wounded animal or something,” she added of the howl she let out when the whole ordeal was over. “And then, that was that.”
She added, “Ten days later, I was back on stage.”
Welch concluded that, although she’d love to have a child one day, the trauma she suffered made it feel impossible to have both a family and a successful career in the music industry.
“I will get those things, hopefully. I will get to have a family, but I haven’t had both. Or so far I haven’t, and then when I tried, I was sort of violently rebuffed,” she said. “There’s a feeling of dying a little bit, every time I make a record. And, this time, I nearly died.”