Pop Queen, Madonna is seen walking around New York a day before she was hospitalized and ‘intubated’ with serious bacterial infection (photos)

Pop Queen, Madonna was pictured strolling around New York City and visiting a fashion exhibition with friends just one day before she was ‘found unresponsive’ and rushed to the ICU, where she was reportedly ‘intubated’ with a serious bacterial infection.

In new images obtained by Mail Online, the 64-year-old American singer is seen visiting the Karl Lagerfeld exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum in Manhattan with her assistant and one of her dancers just hours before she is said to have ‘collapsed’.

Madonna appears relaxed and comfortable in the images in which she is seen wearing sweatpants, sneakers, sunglasses, and a baseball cap.

An earlier report revealed that she had been ‘battling a low-grade fever for a month’ before her shock hospitalization.

According to the outlet, the pop icon ‘mostly ignored her symptoms and never got checked out by a doctor because she was laser focused on her upcoming tour’, which she has been forced to postpone as a result of her health struggles.

‘We’re told her doctors believe the unreported fever was a sign of the infection, which worsened because it was left untreated,’ TMZ claims, adding that the singer’s medical team – as well as ‘those around her’ are concerned that she will ‘go against doctors’ orders and push to start her tour ASAP’.

The outlet also claimed that Madonna was ‘metaphorically “kicking and screaming”‘ about being hospitalized out of fear it could lead to her tour being postponed.

She has certainly been following a rigorous rehearsal schedule in the lead-up to her tour, with her former back-up dancer, Jose Xtravaganza, telling DailyMail.com that the mother-of-six has been rehearsing for six days a week for months in order to ensure that every element of the Celebration shows are perfect.

‘Rehearsals are six days a week from what I hear… the only day off is Sunday,’ Jose – who choreographed Madonna’s iconic Vogue music video – said.

‘I think it’s gonna be a great show, full of costume. There’s a lot of dancing going on. The dance troupe is large. When we went on tour, it was just seven of us. I think now there’s, there’s at least anywhere from 15 to 20 of them.

‘They are trained in different fields of dance different types of artistic expression to be to be shown in the show. I believe there’s gonna be like a lot of martial arts like boxing. She’s very into boxing and things like that. So I think she’s going to revisit a lot of those things that she’s shown in the past. It’s definitely not to be missed.’

In April, an insider revealed to DailyMail.com that Madonna had been ‘driving everyone up the wall with her perfectionism’ in the lead-up to the hotly-anticipated tour, saying: ‘It may be her last tour, so she wants to make it perfect. She is incredible shape and her body is sick.

‘This is her labor of love. Her perfectionism is driving everyone up the wall but she does not care. The crew is working their a** off because everyone wants to make her happy.

‘She has no issues whatsoever with firing someone at the drop of a hat.’

In a statement shared on his own account, Oseary – who has been working with the singer for years – confirmed that she had been diagnosed with a ‘serious bacterial infection’ and that she had been taken to the ICU for treatment.

‘On Saturday, June 24, Madonna developed a serious bacterial infection which led to a several-day stay in the ICU,’ he wrote.

‘Her health is improving, however, she is still under medical care. A full recovery is expected.’

Madonna returned home on Thursday, with sources reporting that she is ‘feeling better.’But it remains unclear when her 35-city tour will now kick off, having been set to start on July 15 in Vancouver.