(Cover) - EN Showbiz - George Michael had to learn to walk again after his battle with pneumonia.

The singer was hospitalised with the illness while on tour in Vienna last year. He has opened up about the experience, explaining he fell ill while in the UK but didn't listen to calls for him to visit a doctor.

He played shows for three more weeks, before eventually becoming so unwell he needed urgent help.

"It's like I just dodged a bullet," he told BBC Radio 2.

"One afternoon I was having lunch and suddenly felt really odd and said to everyone that I need to go and lay down for half an hour on my own.

"And that's the last thing I remember for five weeks. It was three weeks of them trying to save my life and two weeks awake.

"I literally had to learn to walk again and weird stuff, because when they keep you sedated for that long your muscles literally atrophy at an incredible rate. And I just woke up like this feeble old man."

George's team decided to keep the extent of his illness under wraps. If people had realised how ill he was, the star says it would have been a "death watch kind of thing".

"I think maybe the reason I find it still a little bit upsetting to talk about is that because it was so random," he said.

"When something like that happens in such a random fashion I think it takes a while to think that life is safe again." (C) Cover Media