The Voice Australia winner Alfie Arcuri has revealed he was left with shattered spinal discs and has had a months-long injury battle that saw him undergo multiple surgeries. 

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The Australian singer won the fifth season of The Voice in 2016 and travelled to Europe to perform in Sochi’s ‘New Wave’ festival in Russia last year. Upon realising he was unable to return back to Sydney during the height of the pandemic, with the second wave of Covid coming down back home, he moved into a loft in Italy. 

Arcuri fell down a flight of stairs and shattered his spinal discs while he was in Italy and spent three months with severe sciatica before being able to return to Australia to undergo surgery. 

“I fell for two metres and landed on my feet. I was holding a packet of M&Ms and just slipped, and when I fell the people I was living with all ran because they thought (the M&Ms) was my teeth,” Arcuri stated. 

“I couldn’t breathe for like 20 seconds, my whole body was winded. Which is what would’ve shattered the disc. I was worried at first, but then it all slowly went away,” he added. 

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The singer sought medical help in March when the pain returned. An MRI scan showed he had shattered his spinal discs and he had a microdiscectomy where the spine was opened so the disc fragments could be removed. 

The first procedure did not stop the pain, however, with Arcuri recalling he suffered “the worst pain of his life” 24 hours post-surgery. 

“It was 200 times worse than the pain I had before. So I had another MRI and they saw there was still disc fragments touching the nerve,” Arcuri said.

Arcui underwent two back surgeries within 48 hours to fix the shattered discs and eliminate the pain that he was going through. 

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A post shared by Alfie Arcuri (@alfiearcuri)

His latest release, “Overtime” is a song he wrote prior to Covid which highlights his struggles with anxiety. 

“My struggles with anxiety have been going on for a long time, from growing up, I came out late at 26. And I knew I was gay from about 11,” he said.

In a conversation with Gay Star News in 2019, Arcuri revealed his fears of coming out during his childhood and teenage years. “The notion of being gay was always a taboo in my family and I guess very much in the area that I grew up in.”

Arcuri states that in releasing “Overtime” he hopes to share his story with others and “hopefully help others who are suffering.” 

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