{"id":827839,"date":"2026-07-27T22:47:14","date_gmt":"2026-07-27T22:47:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/827839\/"},"modified":"2026-07-27T22:47:14","modified_gmt":"2026-07-27T22:47:14","slug":"carly-simon-diagnosed-with-parkinsons-deisease-and-releasing-new-album","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/827839\/","title":{"rendered":"Carly Simon diagnosed with Parkinson’s deisease and releasing new album"},"content":{"rendered":"

Singer Carly Simon has been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease but says she won’t be defined by her illness and is releasing a new album.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“So many people have written to me, kindly wondering about my relative silence, asking how I am and what I have been doing,” she said in a statement.<\/p>\n

“The truth is, I’ve been learning how to live with Parkinson’s disease.”<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Carly Simon’s biggest hit was You’re So Vain, released in 1972. (Supplied: Wiki Commons)<\/p>\n

Declining mobility<\/p>\n

The singer, 83, had been experiencing arthritis in one of her hips and both her knees and had replacement surgeries for those three joints.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But her mobility continued to decline.\u00a0<\/p>\n

At times, she said, she could not walk without “considerable help”.<\/p>\n

You’re So Vain turns 50<\/a><\/p>\n

For 50 years, people have listened to Carly Simon’s hit single and asked, “Who is so vain they think this song is about them?”<\/p>\n

Simon said she and her family knew “something more was going on” and after an extensive evaluation, she was diagnosed with Parkinson’s.<\/p>\n

“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,” she said.<\/p>\n

“Parkinson’s is different for everyone and it can be unpredictable.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“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.”<\/p>\n

Tremors, stiffness and slurred speech<\/p>\n

Parkinson’s is a neurological disease that robs people of control over their movements.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It typically starts with tremors and is characterised by slow movement, a shuffling gait, stiff limbs, balance problems and slurred speech.<\/p>\n

About 10 million people worldwide are living with the condition, the Parkinson’s Foundation estimates.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Who’s so vain?<\/a><\/p>\n

Fans have speculated for more than 40 years over just who was “so vain” in the famous song by Carly Simon \u2014 and now she has revealed the answer.<\/p>\n

It usually appears after age 60, although it sometimes develops before age 50.<\/p>\n

The exact cause isn’t known, but Parkinson’s develops when cells that produce one of the brain’s chemical messengers \u2014 dopamine \u2014 begin to deteriorate and die.<\/p>\n

There is no cure, but there are treatments including medications that affect dopamine levels and a surgically implanted tremor-blocking device.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Patients also can benefit from physical and occupational therapy.<\/p>\n

Simon releasing new album<\/p>\n

“I began treatment, including taking medication to help with stiffness and other symptoms,” Simon said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“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.”<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Carly Simon says she doesn’t want her illness to define her life. (Supplied: Wiki Commons)<\/p>\n

She also shared that she was treated for basal cell carcinoma, a common form of skin cancer, on her face at the same time.\u00a0<\/p>\n

She had surgery, and the cancer was removed, “but the surgery affected my appearance and made me more self-conscious about being seen in public,” she said.<\/p>\n

She said music has been a salve, and on August 14, she will release Comes in Waves, her first album of original songs since 2008.<\/p>\n

“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,” she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“It reminded me that illness can change your life without becoming the whole of your life.”<\/p>\n

AP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Singer Carly Simon has been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease but says she won’t be defined by her illness…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":827840,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[64,63,1617,214316,447,134,136,30888,10610,81922],"class_list":["post-827839","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-cancer","tag-carly-simon","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment","tag-music","tag-music-industry","tag-parkinsons-disease","tag-skin-cancer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/827839","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=827839"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/827839\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/827840"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=827839"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=827839"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=827839"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}