The singer and songwriter Carly Simon has been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, she announced on Monday.
“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,” Simon, 83, said in a statement, adding that she was still learning how to accept the condition “without feeling that I have surrendered something essential.”
She decided to reveal the news, the statement said, after people began to wonder why she had not responded to their inquiries about her relative public silence lately.
“The truth is, I’ve been learning how to live with Parkinson’s disease,” she said. It was unclear when Simon had received her diagnosis.
Simon is best known for hits like “You’re So Vain,” “Nobody Does It Better” and “Let the River Run,” a 1989 release that won an Academy Award, a Golden Globe and a Grammy Award. Her first new album of original songs in 18 years, “Comes in Waves,” is set to be released next month. Its lead single, “Howl,” came out in June.
Symptoms of Parkinson’s disease, a neurological disorder that damages nerve cells in the brain, include tremors, stiffness and trouble with balance and movement. The disease does not have a cure.
In her statement, Simon said that she sometimes found herself “so tired I can’t get the day moving at all” but that at other times Parkinson’s gave her “more room to move, think, work and feel like myself.”
Her health problems began, she said, after she had both knees and one hip replaced because of arthritis. She was diagnosed with Parkinson’s after being evaluated at the Mayo Clinic.
She said she had found the feelings of apathy that the disease could provoke particularly challenging.
“It is not simply sadness or laziness,” she said. “It is as though the part of the brain that sends out invitations to participate in life has temporarily misplaced the guest list.”
Around the time of her diagnosis, Simon was also treated for basal cell carcinoma on her face. The surgery to remove the cancer, she said, affected her appearance, making her “more self-conscious about being seen in public.”
But working on her new album gave shape to her days, she explained: “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.”
Music, Simon said, “has rescued me more times that I can count.”
These days, she went on, “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.”
