Pic : Shirley Manson Instagram
The 56 year old Garbage singer and actress from Edinburgh had been struggling with her movement on and off over the last seven years after she fell off the rotating stage at a gig in LA whilst singing her band’s song Special.
And after touring with Alanis Morrisette two years ago the Stupid Girl singer realised things were becoming worrying.
Reliving the moment she fell at KROQ Weenie Fest in the US Shirley told Curious Creatures podcast: “I knew what was happening as it was happening.
”I went into slow motion and I was like, I'm gonna f***ing fall off the front of this f***ing stage.
“I f***ing can't believe it. Oh my god. Here I go yep, tumbling forward and then all of a sudden I've landed on my feet. Thank God. Unbeknownst to me at the time I really jacked my right hip on the barrier. I landed on the barrier. And then for six years, I've had some problems.
“And then the last I was on tour with Atlantis Morissette two years ago and I couldn't walk on days off. I said: ‘What the hell's going on?’”
Following a medical consultation Shirley's doctor told her she needed a hip replacement which she had in March - and she claims it has been a humbling experience.
She explained: “My doctor was like, ‘Yeah, you need a hip replacement’. So I had that a month ago and it was so humbling.
Like I've never had any physical problems my whole life, like nothing. I've never broken a leg or a finger or anything. And then all of a sudden, I find myself using a bedpan p***ing in a bedpan, you know, and having some nurse come and clean me up, I was like, This cannot be happening to me. This cannot be happening. It was happening to me.”
Shirley recalled having to use a zimmer to walk around LA and says it was a great ego check.
She added: “And then I couldn't walk for two whole weeks.
“And then I was with a walker, like shuffling around Beverly Hills, outside my doctor's office because I do not live in Beverly Hills, I hasten to add, and it was just such a great ego check of like, yeah, you are just you and you are going to die and you better enjoy your life that you've got left.”
Shirley who is working on Garbage’s eighth studio album is currently touring North America with Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds.
And, as she joked that she was looking forward to bleeping at every security check, she said: “Now, you know, just really seize the day. It was really both a cool experience and an awful one. But here I am, with my amazing bionic hip, which looks so beautiful on the X ray, and I'm grateful to be alive. So there you go. It's a triumphant story in the end.“
