R&B icon Janet Jackson has postponed yet more concerts
of her current Rock Witchu Tour due to the undisclosed illness which had her
enter a Montreal
hospital last week.
Janet Jackson, 42, was in Montreal last Monday, performing a sound
check before the night’s concert, when she suddenly felt ill and was taken to a
local hospital. The nature of her condition was not revealed at the time and no
further details have been released in the meantime.
She left the Royal Victoria Hospital
in Montreal
after a couple of hours, a spokesperson for the medical facility said then. She
did not perform that night and cancelled two more shows, one in Boston, scheduled for Oct. 1 and one in Philadelphia, scheduled for Oct. 2.
Her publicist said at the time that she needed time to
recover and that she would be in Greensboro,
N. C. on Saturday, Oct. 4, as planned.
The plan nevertheless changed, although not for lack of
effort on Jackson’s
part. She arrived in Greensboro hoping to entertain her fans as promised but a
local doctor who checked her said it was “evident” she was not ready for such
an endeavor, the singer’s publicist said.
Saturday’s concert was therefore postponed, as was Sunday’s
in Atlanta and another one initially scheduled
for Tuesday in Fort Lauderdale.
This is Jackson’s
first North American tour in seven years, following the very successful tour
she held in support of her 2001 album “All For You.” The Rock Witchu Tour
kicked off on Sept. 10 in Vancouver,
Canada, to enthusiastic
reviews.
Another show was cancelled in late September, in Detroit, due to
“production constraints.”
Jackson’s
representatives are asking fans to hold on to their tickets while organizers
try to reschedule the concerts.
The singer has had other health problems this year. In
March, she dropped out of a scheduled “Saturday Night Live” performance because
she had the flu but did not offer many details.
The Rock Witchu Tour is in support of her latest album,
“Discipline,” which was released in February and bowed at No. 1 on the
Billboard 200, her sixth studio effort to date to accomplish the feat. It has
sold some 415,000 copies to date in the U.S., receiving generally positive
reviews from critics.
The current tour is the fifth of her career. There has been
speculation that the strenuous rehearsals and fatiguing shows took their toll on
Jackson’s
health. A source close to her longtime boyfriend Jermaine Dupri told People
magazine last week that Jackson
had complained of exhaustion.
Her representatives have said Jackson is currently “recuperating” and that
she will return home for further treatment.
