Florence Welch, frontwoman of Florence and the Machine, has shared harrowing details of a miscarriage and life-threatening ectopic pregnancy she suffered in 2023. Speaking with The Guardian, Welch described the ordeal as the moment she came “closest to death,” just days after experiencing the devastating loss of her first pregnancy.

In August 2023, Welch discovered she was pregnant for the first time after deciding to try for a baby with her boyfriend. At nearly 37 years old, she initially doubted her chances. “It was my first experience of even trying to get pregnant, and I thought, there’s no way, because I’m ancient,” she recalled. To her surprise, she conceived immediately. “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.”

The pregnancy ended early in a miscarriage, an outcome Welch processed with heartbreak but also resignation. “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,’” she said. “I spoke to my doctor, and they are not generally dangerous. Devastating, but not dangerous.”

Within days, however, Welch learned that the pregnancy had been ectopic, meaning the fertilized egg had implanted in her fallopian tube rather than the uterus. The tube ruptured, causing internal bleeding. “The closest I came to making life was the closest I came to death,” Welch said. “And I felt like I had stepped through this door, and it was just full of women, screaming.”

The medical emergency collided with Welch’s touring schedule. Just a week after the miscarriage, she was booked to headline a festival in Cornwall, England. Unaware at the time that she was already suffering from an ectopic pregnancy, Welch pressed on despite significant bleeding and pain.

“Women! It’s funny. I took some ibuprofen and stepped out on stage,” she said. “Emotionally, I was sad and scared, but I think, also, I was coping.”

It wasn’t the first time Welch forced herself to perform under extreme physical strain. The previous year, she had continued a concert despite breaking her foot while dancing. “With physical stuff, I have a strange, otherworldly strength,” she admitted. “Emotionally, I’m an absolute nightmare. Literally, will crumble. But a broken bone? Fine. Internal bleeding? Let’s go.”

After what she described as an “amazing show,” Welch boarded her tour bus back to London. The pain soon returned. Though she resisted going to the hospital, her doctor’s insistence that she undergo a scan ultimately saved her life.

During the scan, doctors discovered that her fallopian tube had ruptured. Welch said she had “a Coke can’s worth of blood” in her abdomen. She underwent emergency surgery, during which the damaged tube was removed. Her touring schedule nearly made the situation even more dire. “I was due to fly to another festival,” she said. “If I’d got on that plane, I’d have come off on a stretcher. Or worse.”

The near-death experience left Welch shaken but reflective about the intersections of artistry, health, and mortality. “I feel like I die a little bit every time I make a record, and kind of literally nearly died on the last tour,” she said in a statement tied to the band’s upcoming album.

Florence and the Machine’s sixth studio album, Everybody Scream, is set for release on Oct. 31. The band has already previewed the project with the title track and “One of the Greats,” which Welch co-wrote with Idles guitarist Marc Bowen in a single take. “Yet I always dig myself up to try again,” Welch said of her relentless creative drive. “Always trying to please that one person who doesn’t like it, or finally feel like I made something perfect and I can rest.”