Madonna stopped by The Jonathan Ross Show recently to plug her new album Rebel Heart. The pop star also used the appearance as an opportunity to explain how she ended up falling during her BRIT Awards performance of "Living for Love" last week, Rolling Stone noted. She explained that a few minor changes to her meticulously planned performance contributed to the spill, but the Queen of Pop was in good spirits about the whole ordeal, which she called a "horrible nightmare."
"I didn't hurt my butt, I hurt my head. I did," Madonna explained. "I know how to fall, I've fallen off my horse many times and I tucked and I have good core strength ... but the thing is, I had a little bit of a whiplash and I smacked the back of my head so there was a man standing over me with a flashlight until about 3 a.m. making sure that I was still compos mentis."
The singer said that after rehearsing the performance multiple times, she was told to start further back on the stage when she entered. In order to keep the heavy cape she was wearing from falling off, it was tied tighter than at rehearsal. She was unable to loosen the cape onstage, which resulted in her back-up dancers trying to yank it off, choking the pop star in the process.
"So here I am marching in like a queen and I got to the top of the stairs and I pulled my silky string and it would not come undone and my two lovely Japanese dancers basically strangled me off the stage. I had a choice, I could either be strangled or fall with the cape and I fell," she added.
You can see Madonna struggling to get the cape off before the tumble in the video below.
The Queen of Pop called the incident a "horrible nightmare." The clip went viral mainly because Madonna is known to put on spectacular, flawless performances, and the fall was uncharacteristic of the entertainer's track record.
