Country music icon Mark Chesnutt rushed to hospital year after heart surgery. Here’s what we know

Country music star Mark Chesnutt had to be rushed to a hospital in Louisiana before a recent show, and he has cancelled an upcoming gig.

Chesnutt, 62, reportedly fell ill on Thursday before opening for the legendary group, Alabama, at the Raising Cane’s River Center.

He was admitted to the hospital there. People Magazine reported that Chesnutt was still in the hospital on Friday undergoing tests for “low sodium count and extreme high blood pressure.”

The singer was slated to perform on Saturday at the One Portales Wine, Beer and Music Festival in New Mexico, but he cancelled that appearance.

“Due to unforeseen circumstances, Mark Chesnutt will no longer be able to perform at the One Portales Wine, Beer and Music Festival,” Eastern New Mexico University announced. “We unfortunately will have to cancel the event. Refunds will be emailed to all ticket buyers in the upcoming days.”

Chesnutt has had a series of health issues across the past several years, including a scary heart problem last year that resulted in him receiving a quadruple bypass.

And, in an interview with American Songwriter earlier this year, country he revealed that his heart issues last year were not the first time he nearly lost his life.

In fact, Chesnutt laid out a series of health issues that became progressively worse across the past couple of years. He had a fractured spine that he lived with for years that finally needed to be fixed.

And, while he was recovering from that back during the pandemic, he picked up a drinking habit that took control and nearly took his life, too. He was off the road because of the virus and laid up after having back surgery.

“It was getting worse and worse, and my surgery was a major major one,” he said. “I couldn’t work. I was laid up, didn’t drive, couldn’t walk, couldn’t do anything.”

Chesnutt said he “drank all day, every day.”

“I’d get up in the middle of the night and drink,” he said. “I’d never stop.”

Chesnutt said he grew up in a time when “it was normal for everybody to drink all the time.”

“I just took it to the extreme,” he said, “and it about killed me.”

That is when he said he had his wife call for an ambulance.

“I knew I was dying,” he said.

American Songwriter reported that doctors gave the singer four blood transfusions and told him his heart was “on the edge of cardiac arrest.” Chesnutt said they told his wife if she had not called when she did, he likely would not have survived another two days. The singer told the site he was in a Knoxville hospital for a week where he learned that all of his organs, and especially his heart, were on the verge of shutting down.

“I was bleeding out from the inside,” Chesnutt said. “They basically told me they were gonna get me over this, and I was going to be fine, and they could fix everything wrong with me. But if they discharged me and I went home and I started drinking again, I’d be back in a matter of days, and I might not leave alive.

“I had to quit drinking or die.”