Linda Ronstadt on losing her voice to Parkinson's disease: 'It's like losing a leg or an arm'

Linda Ronstadt's career sadly came to an end when Parkinson's disease left her unable to sing.

The 10-time Grammy winner was officially diagnosed with Parkinson's in 2013, but she actually lost her voice four years earlier.

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"It felt like something was wrong, but I couldn't tell what it was," Ronstadt, now 73, told People magazine on September 4. "First, I thought it was my headphone mix, then I thought it was the microphone, then I thought some frequencies were just missing from my voice. It got slowly, steadily worse."

She described not being able to sing as "like not having a leg or an arm, but there's nothing I can do about it."

Ronstadt also finds it hard to walk and has severe back pain that means she spends most of her time at home.

"There's nothing I can do and I just learned how to live with it," she said. "I can't sit up in a theatre and it's hard to go to a movie or an opera. I try to get out, but it's about once a year."

Ronstadt's last performance was at the Municipal Auditorium in San Antonio, Texas, 10 years ago — and she remembers every moment.

"I saw every concert I ever sang," she told Rolling Stone on September 4. "They say your life flashes before your eyes when you die. But it does when you retire from singing, too."

Linda Ronstadt: The Sound of My Voice, a documentary about the 'Long Long Time' singer, is set to be released in American theatres on Friday.

Watch the emotional trailer in the video above.

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