Updated: Rick Ross Misses Memphis Performance After Two In-Flight Health Scares

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Rapper Rick Ross performs on September 9, 2011 in San Antonio, Texas.

The rapper suffered a health problem requiring his plane to return home – and after remaining optimistic about performing Friday evening, his second travel attempt ended in a similar health problem.

(UPDATED 10/15 10 a.m.) Around 1 p.m. Friday, Rick Ross suffered an undisclosed health problem – what was allegedly a seizure – forcing his Delta flight to turn back to Fort Lauderdale.

But less than four hours later, he was back in the air. “Memphis here I come,” Ross tweeted around 5 p.m., posting an accompanying video that showed him sitting on a private jet en route to Memphis. It was all promotion of his forthcoming album with nary a mention of his health problems of just hours before.

Those health problems would plague him again, though, as his Memphis-bound private jet made an unscheduled stop in Birmingham, Ala. around 5:30 p.m. His condition and symptoms were again kept undisclosed, but it’s widely believed that he suffered two medical seizures in the span of about six hours Friday.

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Ross, whose real name is William Leonard Roberts II, was scheduled to perform at the Memphis Madness event taking place at midnight Friday for the University of Memphis basketball team. Memphis basketball coach Josh Pastner broke the news to the crowd that Ross wouldn’t be there. “On his way to Memphis,” Pastner said, “he had to make another emergency landing, in Birmingham. He got really sick again, and they had to rush him to the emergency room.”

Around 1 p.m. Friday, Ross was on a Delta flight from Fort Lauderdale to Memphis when he suffered an unspecified medical problem, the Associated Press reports. The health scare was initially reported as a seizure that rendered him unconscious, though later accounts say that the rapper was breathing and conscious as the plane returned to Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport. Officials say he walked off the airplane and was taken to a local hospital.

TMZ reported that the Ross received CPR, but Mike Jachles, a spokesman for Broward Sheriff Fire Rescue, said that he received only “advanced life-support care” that didn’t include CPR. The hefty 34-year-old rapper downplayed the incident himself via Twitter, responding to supporters and ignoring the hype surrounding his health.

Nick Carbone is a reporter at TIME. Find him on Twitter at @nickcarbone. You can also continue the discussion on TIME’s Facebook page and on Twitter at @TIME.

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