Carly Simon health update: You’re So Vain singer reveals Parkinson’s, cancer diagnoses

The singer of You’re So Vain has shared a lengthy health update with fans, revealing two heartbreaking diagnoses.

Carly Simon, 83, shared the seven-page statement on Tuesday morning with her 207,000 Instagram followers.

The purple text over a swirly purple background started with her saying many people had contacted her asking about her “relative silence”.

Her last public appearance was in 2019, when she was promoting her memoir, Touched by the Sun: My Friendship with Jackie, which delved into her relationship with JFK’s wife Jackie Kennedy Onassis.

“So many people have written to me, kindly wondering about my relative silence, asking how I am and what I have been doing,” she wrote.

“The truth is, I’ve been learning how to live with Parkinson’s Disease.

“It has taken me some time to understand the diagnosis, how to adjust to it, and decide how much I wanted to say about it publicly.”

Simon has won two Grammy Awards, an Academy Award, and a Golden Globe, and is best known for her songs You’re So Vain, Let the River Run, and Nobody Does it Better.

She said that while the diagnosis was difficult for her, it was “different for everyone”.

For Simon, it means that some days are better than others.

“Some days I’m so tired I can’t get the day moving at all,” she said.

“On others, it gives me a little more room to move, think, work, and feel like myself.”

Parkinson’s Disease affects more than 10 million people across the globe, with over 150,000 living with the disease in Australia.

Simon, who lives on Martha’s Vineyard, wrote that the problems began with arthritis in both knees and one hip, which led to replacements of all three.

She described those operations as, “Out with the old and in with delicate bouquets of metal and plastic”.

“After three replacement surgeries, I assumed my difficulty walking was simply an unfortunate and rather ironic part of the recovery process,” she wrote.

“But my mobility continued to worsen.

The Grammy Award winner said she had difficulty getting up from low seats, and eventually “could not walk without considerable help”, which is when she and her family knew “that something more was going on”.

After an “extensive evaluation”, she received her Parkinson’s Disease diagnosis and began treatment, which included medication for stiffness.

While her movement and balance had been affected, she said she had also experienced anxiety, depression, exhaustion, and apathy alongside her tremors.

But it has not just been Parkinson’s Disease that Simon has been battling.

“During this same period, I was also treated for basal cell carcinoma on my face,” she wrote.

“The cancer was removed, but the surgery affected my appearance and made me more self-conscious about being seen in public.”

After making a joke about the irony of having written You’re So Vain, she said that music had been a great help during her “hibernation”.

“Between my mobility issues, the Parkinson’s diagnosis, the surgery, and the emotional effects of it all, withdrawing from public view was the only palatable reaction... But I have not stopped living, and I have not stopped working.”

Simon revealed she had begun recording a new album, Comes in Waves, which she described as cathartic.

The new, full-length album will be her first since 2008.

“Music has always known when to arrive,” she wrote.

“It has rescued me more times than I can count.”

Simon said that her diagnosis of Parkinson’s Disease was “difficult, frustrating, and sometimes frightening” and that she was still learning how to live with it, adding that she was grateful for her family, friends, and medical professionals for their support.

“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,” she wrote.

“But I am still very much here.”

Simon signed off the message with, “With love, Carly”.