James Arthur thought he was ''gonna die on stage'' when he suffered extreme pain.

The 'Say You Won't Let Go' hitmaker thought he was just battling the flu when he took to the stage during his European tour but after investigation by doctors, it was revealed he had a gallbladder infection and he was rushed into emergency surgery.

He said: ''I had really bad anxiety. I thought I was gonna die on stage, it was weird.''

And the 32-year-old singer was thrilled to go back on his tour eventually but had to have ''a month of intensive therapy'' before he was able to get back on stage.

He added: ''I did manage to do my arena tour, but it took a month of intensive therapy for me to get right to get back on stage. So yeah, it was a bit of a mad time.''

Meanwhile, James insists he is ''absolutely fine'' now but decided to take some time for himself because he had ''obviously been burning the candle too much''.

Speaking to Newsbeat, he shared: ''I'm absolutely fine. After the surgery I'd recovered within a couple of weeks but I just thought I needed to take a bit of time for myself. I'd obviously been burning the candle too much.''

Meanwhile, James previously admitted he wants to become an actor as he feels ''overlooked'' as a singer.

He said: ''Sometimes I feel like there's only so far I can go when you take into consideration where I came from, you know, I can only feel like I'm gonna be overlooked for so long in this field. It's amazing what I've been able to do since 'The X Factor' and sometimes I feel like I kind of used to make music for myself and to inspire other people and my competitive ego sometimes gets in the way. Acting is a good, pretending to be other people and exploring another avenue of creativity.''