Patti Smith has been discharged from hospital and is in ‘good health’ after she was hospitalised due to a ‘sudden illness’.
The American singer, 76, was due to perform at the Duse Theatre in Bologna on Tuesday, during her recent Italian tour.
The show was cancelled and she was kept under observation in the Maggiore hospital, Italian news source TG Com 24 said.
The Local Health Authority of Bologna told the LA Times that Patti was discharged on Wednesday after a ‘short period of observation in emergency.’
The statement added: ‘Patti Smith is discharged and in good health condition.’
Patti Smith has been discharged from hospital and is in ‘good health’ after she was hospitalised due to a sudden illness (pictured on November 29)
Patti is a punk icon but has previously spoken out about her life-long bronchial battle
The newspaper also saw pictures of Patti looking in good spirits and smiling with hospital staff.
However, Patti has been forced to cancel her remaining tour dates in Italy, including a show on Thursday at the Malibran Theatre in Venice. A book signing in Milan on Friday will also not go ahead.
The Punk icon has recently spoken of her long-term battle with a bronchial condition.
After Patti fell ill, the Duse Theatre released a statement which read: ‘With great regret, we inform the kind audience that Patti Smith’s concert will not be able to go on stage due to a sudden illness that struck the artist.
‘We are all sorry for the inconvenience caused by this news. Our best wishes for a speedy recovery go to the artist.’
Patti’s most recent performance was at the Modena Cathedral on Saturday evening which forms part of an eight-date Italian tour.
MailOnline previously contacted a spokesperson for Patti for more information.
Patti previously told The Guardian in 2020 of her struggles during the pandemic because of her bronchial condition, which meant she had to stay home.
Patti had been due to perform at the Teatro Duse in Bologna on Tuesday (pictured) but the show was cancelled at the last minute
She was kept under observation and is now said to be in ‘good health’ (pictured in 1976)
The singer was in the midst of an eight-date Italian tour but the remainder has now been cancelled (pictured in Pescara on November 29)
She said: ‘I was a sickly kid, sometimes they were worried I wouldn’t pull through.
‘To be in limbo almost 10 months, for a person like me who doesn’t like sitting in the same place, it’s been very challenging.’
Last year, a controversial track released by Patti became unavailable to download through any streaming services.
The song ‘Rock n Roll N****r,’ which was released alongside the Patti Smith Group’s 1978 Album, ‘Easter,’ was removed by Spotify, Apple Music, Tidal and Amazon Music.
Patti has said in previous interviews that she intended to use the N-word as a way of ‘reinventing it … like the kids did with the word punk.’
She said in 1996: ‘I was taking this archaic use of the word n****r and sort of reinventing it.
‘It was the idea of taking a word that was specific and hurtful to people and obliterating it, blowing that apart and reinventing it so it was more like a badge of courage.’
In the song, Smith uses the N-word to describe Jimi Hendrix, Jesus Christ ‘and grandma, too,’ before saying the word eight consecutive times.
Bob Dylan used the word in his song Hurricane, released two years earlier. Dylan’s tune, which depicts the acts of racism against boxer Rubin ‘Hurricane’ Carter, was most recently censored by the BBC in its broadcast.
Patti first received notoriety for the song – despite initial controversy upon the track’s release – when she used the N-word to describe Mick Jagger.
In defense of this, Smith said: ‘On our liner notes, I redefined the word n****r as being an artist mutant that was going beyond gender.’
When prompted by the interviewer that Jagger did not suffer ‘like anyone who grew up in Harlem,’ she replied: ‘Suffering don’t make you a n****r.
‘I mean, I grew up poor, too. … Ya think black people are better than white people or something? I was raised with black people. It’s like, I can walk down the street and say to a kid, ‘Hey n****r.’
‘I don’t have any kind of super-respect or fear of that kind of stuff. When I say statements like that, they’re not supposed to be analyzed, ’cause they’re more like off-the-cuff humorous statements.’
Pictured: Patti in 1976, two years before the release of her album, ‘Easter.’ A song on that album, ‘Rock n Roll N****r,’ has since disappeared from online streaming services
Smith has said in previous interviews that she intended to use the N-word as a way of ‘reinventing it … like the kids did with the word punk’
She defended those statements 20 years later, adding that she had planned to subvert the word’s meaning.
‘You could have called Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci a n****r – people that created art for the palace but had to come in the back door,’ she said.
‘Beethoven was not allowed to come in through the front door of the palace.’
Despite the individual track being removed from streaming services, it is still available in the physical copy of the album.
It is also available when purchasing the album in full online.
Other artists have since covered the song, including Marilyn Manson, Esham, the Oxydants and Courtney Love. Trent Reznor remixed the song for the 1994 film ‘Natural Born Killers.’
Versions of Smith singing the song can still be accessed, as non-official versions of studio recordings are available to the public.
Through the song’s lyrics, Smith takes pride in being an outcast: ‘I was lost and the cost, and the cost didn’t matter to me
‘I was lost and the cost was to be outside society.’
