Smokey Robinson has revealed that COVID-19 really had a hold on him late last year, leaving the Motown legend fearing that he would never sing again.
The voice behind such classics as “You’ve Really Got a Hold on Me,” “I Second That Emotion” and “The Tears of a Clown” revealed in an interview with DailyMail.com that he nearly died while in acute care in a Los Angeles hospital last December during his coronavirus battle.
“It was over, man,” he said. “They had to rush me to the hospital. I got it severely and I was hospitalized for 11 days, and four or five of those I do not even remember. It really was touch and go and a terribly debilitating ailment.”
In fact, Robinson worried that he might have lost his famously creamy croon. “I was not sure that I would ever be able to sing again because it took my voice,” he said. “I could barely even talk.
“Even when I got home I was hoarse, I could not try to sing because I was afraid,” he recalled. “It was one of the most frightening fights I have ever had.”
Although COVID-19 is particularly dangerous when it strikes the elderly, 81-year-old Robinson’s high fitness level helped him to survive. “It sounds weird, I know, but the severity of my condition didn’t hit me until it was over,” he said. “I looked back and knew that I could’ve died . . . It was that severe. Then it scared me.”
And while he is now turning up his workout routine to stay fit, Robinson said he also had to fight to get his beloved voice back into shape.
“Now I work out almost every day because I don’t want to get the virus again, even though I’ve had both of my shots,” he said. “I had to work on my vocal cords and get myself back together. I knew this was what I wanted to do with my life, and it was possible, so I did it.”