first album

Carly Simon on Monday shared a lengthy and candid letter regarding the state of her health, which she said led to her recent withdrawal from the public eye.

The 83-year-old “You’re so Vain” singer and two-time Grammy winner in a statement shared with The Times revealed she has been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease and has dedicated time away from the spotlight to understand and learn how to live with the illness. Simon said she decided to come forward about her health issues after “so many people have written to me, kindly wondering about my relative silence.” She did not specify when she was diagnosed.

Parkinson’s disease, according to the Mayo Clinic, is a nervous system movement disorder that worsens with time and cannot be cured. Tremors are a common symptom of Parkinson’s disease, which also notably afflicts “Back to the Future” star Michael J. Fox.

Simon explained in her statement that she experienced arthritis in both of her knees and one hip prior to receiving her diagnosis. She had those three joints replaced — “out with the old and in with delicate bouquets of metal and plastic” — but experienced worsening mobility after, including difficulty walking and standing from couches and low chairs.

“Eventually, there were periods when I could not walk without considerable help,” she continued. “My family and I knew that something more was going on.”

She said she was diagnosed with Parkinson’s after a trip to the Mayo Clinic and underwent treatment and started taking medication to aid with her symptoms.

“There is no tidy predictable schedule to the illness,” she said.

Simon also wrote that her experience with Parkinson’s wrought “anxiety, depression, exhaustion, an apathy.” Of the last, Simon recalled lying like a starfish “while nothing inside is telling you to get up, read, watch, sing, call someone, or do much of anything at all.”

Simon revealed that in the same period, she underwent surgery to treat skin cancer, specifically basal cell carcinoma on her face. The singer’s two sisters died of different cancers days apart in 2022. She said she felt self-conscious about her appearance post-surgery and retreated further from the public. “This gave my inner critic quite a lot of new material,” she wrote.

The singer, who likened herself to an “all-season” hibernating bear, said “I have not stopped living, and I have not stopped working” amid her health issues. She then promoted her upcoming album “Comes in Waves,” her first album of original music since 2008. “Comes in Waves” arrives Aug. 14. She is set to release the song “Peaches” from the album on Friday.

“Music has always known when to arrive,” she wrote. “It has rescued me more times that I can count.”

“Working on the music gave shape to days that did not always have much shape,” she said. “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.”

For Simon, her Parkinson’s battle has proved “difficult, frustrating, and sometimes frightening,” but not a complete obstacle to her life. She expressed gratitude to her friends, family, caregivers and medical teams 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 concluded. “But I am still very much here.”

In the debut episode of “The De Los Podcast,” hosts Fidel Martinez and Suzy Exposito spoke with the Latin Grammy-nominated singer and actor Leslie Grace about her long-awaited new music — plus some of the highlights and pain points throughout her film career.

Released in May, Grace’s bilingual record “Amor, ¿Quién Eres?” is the first album she’s released in over a decade. Suffused with what Exposito described as “tropical eleganza,” the album is a far cry from the Christian music Grace recorded in her teen years — and a marked shift from the Latin Grammy-nominated self-titled project she released in 2013. She touched on some of the personal developments required to reach the more sensual sonic landscape she explored in her latest release.

“The biggest learning has been how to protect my creative space, while I grow it and discover at the same time,” she told De Los.

The 31-year-old also discussed her work in the 2021 movie musical “In the Heights” — and the online backlash the film received due to the lack of other Afro-Latinos in the cast.

“The lack of representation within film [and] diversity within the Latin community is a conversation we haven’t touched on as much,” she said. “Only so many films [are] given a shot. There [are] certain ways that Latinos are portrayed that are very narrowed down in film. I think it’s a worthwhile conversation at any time. I’m glad that people started to talk about that, so [we] can get more stories.”

Reflecting further on her filmography, Grace talked about the canceled release of “Batgirl,” in which she played the titular role. The film, which was originally for a late 2022 debut on the HBO Max streaming service, was axed by its studio Warner Bros. for financial reasons.

“It was disappointing because we knew the film that we were making,” Grace said of the movie, which was in postproduction when it was scrapped. “I knew that it wasn’t a reflection of our work, because this is something that happens. But I think because of the context of the conversation around representation, and the way that films can be discarded, after a lot of work and time and money has gone into something … the creative community really felt for me.”

During that period, Grace said the support from other creatives helped her move forward. She has since starred in more independent films in recent years — including “In the Summers,” which won a grand jury prize at the Sundance Film Festival in 2024 — and the 2026 features “Stages” and “Campeón Gabacho,” which premiered at this year’s edition of South By Southwest.

“I really am grateful for every person that reached out to me and was like: ‘Hey, I’ve got you, whatever you need,’ or ‘This is wrong,’” Grace said. “When something happens to me, I focus on my experience and what I gained from it, that no one could really take away.”