Singer Morrissey tells of health nightmare that halted tour

The former Smiths frontman said, on top of his poor health, the bills meant he was unable to get insurance to continue performing on the dates. He cancelled the tour a few days ago after a number of health problems led to him being admitted to hospital, after many shows had already been dropped or postponed.

Morrissey, 53, spoke about how he has been warned about the risks to his health of continuing to perform, and how he now believes he has hopefully been “saved from death”, during an interview with a Mexican radio station.

He had been due to play a major festival in Mexico but it was one of the many shows to be axed.

Morrissey said he had been upset to pull out of promised appearances: “I do feel it, I do feel immense sorrow missing the festival; the pain was just incredible.”

The outspoken star has been fighting ill health for a number of weeks after being diagnosed with a bleeding ulcer and a condition called Barrett’s oesophagus, which can lead to cancer.

His depleted defences were then battered by pneumonia.

He said: “I had internal bleeding and I was rushed into hospital and I lost a lot of blood. And they tried to patch me together over the following five weeks, but it didn’t quite work and I was on lots of IV drips for almost five weeks and each time it seemed like I was back to robust health I would go into decline so this is what happened with the festival this week.”