Donald Glover, whose rap persona caught the attention of the hip-hop blogosphere in 2010, has found success in both music and television. Photo: AP
American actor and musician Donald Glover said onstage during a concert in Los Angeles on Nov 22 that he had suffered a stroke and other health challenges in 2024 that led him to abandon his world tour.
Glover, a five-time Grammy winner known for high-energy performances under his rap alter ego Childish Gambino, shared the details during a performance at American rapper Tyler, the Creator’s Camp Flog Gnaw, a music festival held last weekend at Dodger Stadium.
“I had a really bad pain in my head in Louisiana, and I did the show anyway,” Glover, 42, told the audience, referring to a concert in 2024, according to widely circulated video clips on social media. “I couldn’t really see well, so when we went to Houston, I went to the hospital, and the doctor was like, ‘You had a stroke.’”
Doctors later discovered a hole in his heart, Glover said, and he underwent two surgeries to treat the issue.
Glover, who first rose to fame as college student Troy Barnes in American sitcom Community (2009 to 2015), did not share further details, including whether the problems had been resolved.
Representatives for Glover did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Nov 23.
In August 2024, he kicked off The New World Tour in support of his album Bando Stone & The New World (2024). He had concerts scheduled in the United States, Europe, New Zealand and Australia.
After playing 18 shows, he postponed the rest of his North American concerts “to focus on my physical health”, he said at the time. By October, he had cancelled all of the tour’s remaining dates.
“After my show in New Orleans, I went to the hospital in Houston to make sure of an ailment that had become apparent,” Glover wrote in a statement at the time, according to Entertainment Weekly. “It became clear I would not perform that night.”
Glover said then that he needed surgery and time to heal, though he declined to disclose more specific details.
“My path to recovery is something I need to confront seriously,” he said.
Glover, whose rap persona caught the attention of the hip-hop blogosphere in 2010, has found success in both music and television.
His track This Is America (2018), which he recorded as Childish Gambino, won Song of the Year at the Grammy Awards in 2019, and he has won two Emmys and a Golden Globe for his work on the TV series Atlanta (2016 to 2022).
In 2024, Glover said he was retiring the Childish Gambino persona.
“It’s not fulfilling,” he told The New York Times, adding that he “didn’t need to build in this way anymore”.
But he was performing under that stage name on Nov 22.
“Everybody has two lives, and the second life starts when you realise you have one,” he told his fans in Los Angeles. “You should be living your life how you want. It can only get better.” – ©2025 The New York Times Company
