Madonna Had To Be Revived With NARCAN?!?

We’ve all heard the harrowing news about how we almost lost Madonna last month.

The Material Girl singer was reportedly found unresponsive in her home and rushed to the hospital on Saturday, June 24. We learned right away from her manager that she was suffering “a serious bacterial infection.” Later we heard she’d been sick for months — and she was putting off treatment.

Over a week later, and we just got maybe the scariest detail yet. We don’t even know if this is true, but it’s chilling us to the bone to think about one way or the other.

According to Radar Online, the pop star had to be revived with NARCAN!

For those who don’t know, NARCAN (or generically, naloxone) is an injection used in an emergency to save the lives of patients suffering from drug overdoses, typically from narcotics (hence the name). It is a life saver. Does this mean Her Madgesty ODed? That the bacterial infection and all that stuff about trying to keep up with her much-younger backup dancers was a line of BS to hide it?? It certainly wouldn’t be unheard of in the industry for a manager to come up with a cover story for drug use.

But no, this does not necessarily mean there was no bacterial infection, or that opioids were involved. See, while NARCAN’s intended use is as “an opioid antagonist,” per the National Institute on Drug Abuse‘s website, the drug has also been proven to reverse hypotension in patients with septic shock. That’s something Madge was reported to be suffering from due to the advanced infection. So there’s no reason to assume illicit drug use or overdose.

However, if this report is true, it does mean she was even closer to death than we previously imagined. Naloxone is used to revive people. Gurl was on the brink. We shudder to think what might have happened if she’d been discovered even half and hour later.

Thankfully it seems she’s recovering well — she even got to go home after an extended stay at the hospital. Rosie O’Donnell, her pal for over three decades, told curious commenters on Instagram just this week: