Singer Carly Simon reveals Parkinson’s disease and cancer diagnosis: ‘Taken me some time to understand’

Singer Carly Simon has opened up for the first time about her private health battles, revealing she’s been diagnosed with both Parkinson’s disease and cancer. 

The 81-year-old, best known for the hit You’re So Vain, opened up in a lengthy statement shared on social media, where she explained she underwent surgery for a basal cell carcinoma amid her Parkinson’s diagnosis. 

“So many people have written to me, kindly wondering about my relative silence, asking how I am and what I have been doing. The truth is, I’ve been learning how to live with Parkinson’s disease,” the seven-page statement shared on her account started. 

“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 for everyone, and it can be unpredictable. 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.”

Simon explained her health issues started with arthritis in both knees and one hip, and she has had all three joints replaced. Walking was still a struggle, but she put it down to recovery, but her mobility continued to get worse. 

“Eventually, there were periods when I could not walk without considerable help. My family and I knew that something more was going on. After an extensive evaluation at the Mayo Clinic, I was diagnosed with Parkinson’s,” the statement continued. 

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“I began treatment, including taking medication to help with stiffness and other symptoms. There is no tidy or predictable schedule to the illness. It does not consult my calendar before deciding what kind of day I am going to have.”

She explained that while Parkinson’s “is usually associated with movement, tremors, and balance” it can affect more than the body and can bring anxiety, depression, exhaustion and apathy. 

“During this same period, I was also treated for basal cell carcinoma on my face,” the statement went on.  

“The cancer was removed, but the surgery affected my appearance and made me more self-conscious about being seen in public. I have always been more critical of my appearance than anyone else could possibly imagine (check out the irony of having written ‘You’re So Vain’), and this gave my inner critic quite a lot of new material.”

For Simon, between the mobility struggles, Parkinson’s diagnosis, surgery and emotional effect of it all, withdrawing from public life was the “most palatable reaction.” 

But despite it all, she has not stopped living or working and she has started working on a new album, Comes in Waves. 

“Working on the music gave shape to days that did not always have much shape. 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,” the statement read. 

“I do not consider Parkinson’s a gift or a blessing. It is neither. It is difficult, frustrating, and sometimes frightening. I am still learning how to live with it and how to accept it without feeling that I have surrendered something essential.” 

Simon added that she’s deeply grateful for her children, family, friends and caregivers along with the medical professionals who have helped her through this. 

“I wanted to share this now because so many people have reached out with genuine concern. I am touched by that concern, even when I have not known how to respond,” she wrote. 

“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.

“With love, Carly.” 

The statement on her Instagram page has already been flooded with messages of support from fans who thanked her for sharing her health and sent plenty of love to her. 

Simon rose to fame in the early ’70s for her self-titled debut album, which won her the Grammy for Best New Artist.

But the reveal of new music is an exciting one amidst her struggles, with Comes in Waves her first original full-length album since 2008. 

Simon shares two children, Sally, 52, and Ben, 49, with her first husband and fellow musician James Taylor, 78. 

The singer went on to marry writer and businessman James Hart in 1987. They divorced in 2007.