Gary Numan broke down on stageon Saturday evening after receiving the ‘worst news’, it is reported.
The music legend, 67, was on stage at the O2 Academy Birmingham on November 15 when he reportedly ‘broke down’ on stage, worrying fans and his wife Gemma O’Neil, who comforted him mid-performance.
Midway through his song Please Push No More, The Mirror reports Gary got upset and explained he had been given the ‘worst news ever’ that morning.
The Cars hitmaker explained he would share the news with fans in the coming days once he had given himself some time to process.
Tubeway Army star Gary, who has Asperger’s syndrome, is performing in Bristol tonight as part of his Telekon tour, which celebrates the album of the same name’s 45th anniversary after it reached UK number one in 1980.
He is then scheduled in Cardiff (November 18), Bournemouth (Nov 19), London (Nov 21), Brighton (Nov 22), Southend (Nov 23), Nottingham (Nov 25), Cambridge (Nov 26), Norwich (Nov 27), Manchester (Nov 29), Liverpool (Nov 30), Dublin (December 2), and Belfast (Dec 3) before a Christmas break.
He will then spend the start of next year performing on The 80’s Cruise 2026, before heading to the US for another leg of the tour.
This comes after Gary celebrated 1,000 gigs over his four decades in the business, which he wouldn’t have realised unless one keen American fan had collected all his data over the years and emailed him about the milestone.
‘Playing 1,000 shows is quite something, and yet if someone had said it was 5,000 the number would still have felt low, given the extraordinary effort, sacrifice, commitment(and stress) that’s been poured into those shows over the years,’ Gary said of the moment.
‘Each tour is a life within a life, a world within a world. Each one a unique adventure. I have been touring my entire adult life, from a nervous, out-of-my-depth, sulky young man to something entirely different today.
‘It’s a life like no other, and I feel privileged to have reached the 1,000 show milestone, and honoured to have shared that journey with so many of you.’
Through his many tours, Gemma has been by Gary’s side since they met in 1992 – a year he previously revealed was his lowest point, having suffered with depression throughout his life.
Gary has previously credited Gemma, who was a member of a fan club dedicated to her future husband before they became an item, for giving him the confidence in himself that led to his ultimate success.
‘I was in a bad place. I had no record deal at the time. I wasn’t seeing any realistic chance that I was going to get another one. I was finished,’ he recalled in an interview with Metro in 2022.
‘I was firmly convinced that I was the weak link in my records. I thought my singing and my playing weren’t good enough. My songwriting had gone downhill.’
He recalled: ‘Gemma said, “You might not be the best singer in the world but you sing in a certain way and you have a certain sound. That’s what people liked. They liked the quirkiness and the unusual qualities of your voice.”‘
‘It was all down to Gemma making me realise what my strengths were. I’d seen them as weaknesses. She also got my dressing sorted out.’
The pair have been married since 1997 and have three daughters together, named Raven, Echo and Persia.
Gary previously recalled that happiness doesn’t make him want to write songs, but go to the beach.
‘Cars is the happiest song I ever wrote and that’s about road rage and nearly getting beaten up,’ he told Metro in the same interview.
Metro has contacted Gary’s representatives for comment.
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