Iconic ’70s Singer and Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Reveals Private Battle With Parkinson’s Disease
Carly Simon has been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, she announced on Monday.
Addressing her absence from the spotlight, the Rock and Roll Hall of Famer revealed that she has been privately living with the progressive nervous system disorder.
“So many people have written to me, kindly wondering about my relative silence, asking how I am and what I have been doing,” the 83-year-old “You’re So Vain” singer said in a statement.
“The truth is, I’ve been learning how to live with Parkinson’s disease,” she said. She went on to explain that it has “taken me some time to understand the diagnosis, to adjust to it, and to decide how much I wanted to say about it publicly.”
“Parkinson’s is different from everyone, and it can be unpredictable,” she continued. “Some days I’m so tired I can’t get the day moving at all. On others, it gives me a little more room to move, think, work and feel like myself.”
She said she first noticed arthritis in her knees and one hip, after which she underwent three joint replacement surgeries. However, she began having mobility issues during recovery. She said she “had trouble standing up from low chairs and deep couches without someone offering me an arm” and that there were points where she couldn’t walk without “considerable help.”
Following an “extensive evaluation” at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota, she was diagnosed with Parkinson’s. Her treatment has included medication to help with stiffness and other symptoms.
Additionally, she revealed she had surgery on her face for basal cell carcinoma, which made her self-conscious about her appearance. “Between my mobility issues, the Parkinson’s diagnosis, the surgery, and the emotional effects of it all, withdrawing from public view was the most palatable reaction,” she said.
Simon was absent for her November 2022 induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, which came weeks after her two sisters, Joanna and Lucy, died of cancer a day apart. At the event, Sara Bareilles and Olivia Rodrigo honored Simon with performances of “Nobody Does It Better” and “You’re So Vain,” respectively.
Simon said that she does not consider her diagnosis “a gift or a blessing. It is neither. It is difficult, frustrating, and sometimes frightening.”
She said working on her new album, Comes in Waves, which releases on Aug. 14, “gave shape to days that did not always have much shape.” She said, “It gave me somewhere to go without having to leave the room. It reminded me that illness can change your life without becoming the whole of your life.”
“These days I move more slowly, I lean on others more than I once did, and I have learned to accept that every day will look a little different. But I am still very much here,” she said.
Simon rose to fame in the early 1970s with her self-titled debut album, winning the Grammy for Best New Artist. She has two children, daughter sally, 52, and son Ben, 49, with her first husband, musician James Taylor, to whom she was married from 1972 to 1983. She married businessman James Hart in 1987, divorcing in 2007.
