Former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani is opening up for the first time about the recent health crisis that sent him to a Florida hospital, including a “very significant spiritual experience” he said he had while he was in a coma.
The 81-year-old Giuliani on Wednesday returned to his online show, “America’s Mayor Live!” after being hospitalized and placed on a ventilator with a severe case of pneumonia, worsened by a respiratory illness that he says he contracted in wake of the 9/11 terror attacks.
During the broadcast, Giuliani recalled how his late friend and former aide, Peter J. Powers, appeared to him as he phased in and out of consciousness.
Powers, who met Giuliani in high school and eventually served as his deputy mayor, died in 2016 from lung cancer.
“I had a very, very significant spiritual experience at a time in which I was in a state of like out of it. I would equate it to a dream of my being on line headed for, I can’t say headed for heaven, headed for a trial by St. Peter,” Giuliani said.
“There was a very significant intervention by my Peter, I have my own Peter: Peter J. Powers, my friend of my lifetime,” he continued. “Peter said some very significant words, and I made sure, as soon as I woke up, I started telling people and recorded it in part.”
Giuliani, a long-time ally, of President Trump promised to provide more details soon, adding that he didn’t want to “embellish” the moment, nor “deny that it was there.”
Giuliani was hospitalized in Florida on May 3, after he started experiencing breathing issues upon returning home from a trip to Paris. The former mayor slipped into a coma before making a steady recovery, described by his primary care provider, Dr. Maria Ryan, as “a miracle.” At one point, his condition seemed so dire that a priest was called to provide Giuliani his last rites, a Catholic sacrament often administered to the dying.
Trump’s former attorney on Wednesday also returned to the show he hosts on LindellTV, the online network run by MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell. Giuliani said was “in the middle of making a very, very full and complete recovery.”
He added: “I feel 100 percent, but I’m probably not.”
His hospitalization came after he was seriously injured in an August 2025 car accident. He suffered a fractured thoracic vertebra and other significant injuries — including multiple lacerations and contusions, as well as injuries to his left arm and lower leg — after a driver rear-ended his vehicle in New Hampshire, police said at the time.
The year before that, Giuliani reached a settlement with the Georgia election workers he’d been charged with defaming. He repeatedly accused Ruby Freeman and her daughter, Wandrea “Shaye” Moss, of rigging votes for President Biden in 2020, ultimately causing Trump to lose the state. His efforts on behalf of the President have also cost him his law licenses in New York and Washington, D.C.
Giuliani was also arrested in 2024 on conspiracy, fraud and other charges related to alleged election meddling in Arizona, to which he pleaded not guilty. Trump pardoned him shorty after he was elected to a second term.
Giuliani, who also previously served as the United States Associate Attorney General, was mayor of New York City from 1994 to 2001, with the 9/11 attacks occurring just months before the end of his eight-year tenure. His subsequent leadership of the city made him a household name nationwide and earned him the nickname “America’s Mayor.” He went on to run for President in 2007 before withdrawing his bid months into his campaign.