Carly Simon Reveals Parkinson’s Disease and Skin Cancer Diagnosis After Years Away from Spotlight

Carly Simon has finally spoken up about the quiet years that left so many fans wondering where she had gone. In a deeply personal statement shared on July 27, the 83-year-old singer behind classics like “You’re So Vain” revealed that she has been living with Parkinson’s disease and that she also underwent surgery for basal cell carcinoma, a common form of skin cancer on her face.

She explained that the trouble started with arthritis in both knees and one hip. After having all three joints replaced, she thought the ongoing difficulty walking was just part of the long recovery. But things kept getting harder.

Standing up from soft chairs or deep couches became a struggle, and overstuffed furniture felt like it might swallow her whole. There were stretches when she could not walk without real help from someone else. Her family sensed something deeper was wrong. After a thorough evaluation at the Mayo Clinic, doctors diagnosed her with Parkinson’s.

Treatment began with medication to ease the stiffness and other symptoms. Simon described the illness as unpredictable, saying some days the fatigue hits so hard she can barely get moving while other days she has a bit more room to think, work, and feel like herself. Beyond the physical challenges of movement, balance, and tremors, she noted that Parkinson’s can also bring anxiety, depression, exhaustion, and a strange kind of apathy. She compared that apathy to lying still like a starfish on the beach, with nothing inside urging her to get up or engage with the world. It is not laziness or simple sadness, she said. It is as if the part of the brain that invites a person into daily life has temporarily lost the guest list.

Around the same time she was adjusting to the Parkinson’s diagnosis, surgeons removed the basal cell carcinoma from her face. The cancer was gone, but the operation changed how she looked and left her far more self-conscious about being seen. She has always been her own harshest critic about her appearance, she noted with a touch of irony given the famous song she once wrote, and the surgery gave that inner critic plenty of new material.

All of it mobility problems, the diagnosis, the surgery, and the emotional weight made stepping back from public life feel like the only manageable choice. She compared herself to an all-season bear who hibernates year-round. Yet she insisted she has not stopped living and has not stopped working.

In the middle of everything she began recording a new album called Comes in Waves, her first collection of original songs in 18 years. The record is set for release on August 14. Music, she said, has always known when to show up, arriving like a quiet animal that senses when someone needs company. The songs and unfinished fragments had been waiting for her, some for years. Working on them gave shape to days that otherwise felt formless and reminded her that illness can alter a life without defining every part of it.

Simon was clear that she does not see Parkinson’s as any kind of gift. It is difficult, frustrating, and at times frightening. She is still learning how to live with it without feeling she has given up something essential. She continues writing, singing, imagining, laughing, worrying, and remembering, even if she occasionally finds herself stuck in an overstuffed chair. She expressed deep gratitude to her children, family, friends, caregivers, and the medical team who have carried her through the harder days.

These days she moves more slowly and leans on others more than before. Every day looks a little different. But she is still very much here.