Barry Manilow has offered an update on his health after being diagnosed with lung cancer.
The Grammy Award winner, 82, shared a photo of himself smiling as he lay in a hospital bed on Friday, January 2. Alongside the photo, Manilow assured his fans on Friday that he was feeling “better today.”
Manilow was showered with positive messages and well-wishes from his Instagram followers. Melanie Taylor, Manilow’s longtime backup singer, beamed “that’s my boss y’all” in the comments.
“He’s making it through the rain! Love you B,” Taylor went on.
Guns N’ Roses and The Cult alum Matt Sorum added, “Heal up Barry, much love.”
“Sending lots of love, Barry,” drag icon Coco Peru chimed in.
On December 22, Manilow went public with his lung cancer diagnosis and confirmed he would soon undergo surgery.
“As many of you know, I recently went through six weeks of bronchitis followed by a relapse of another five weeks. Even though I was over the bronchitis and back on stage at the Westgate Las Vegas, my wonderful doctor ordered an MRI just to make sure that everything was OK,” he shared via Instagram. “The MRI discovered a cancerous spot on my left lung that needs to be removed. It’s pure luck (and a great doctor) that it was found so early. That’s the good news.”
The “Can’t Smile Without You” singer explained that he needed to finish his annual Christmas concerts in December before scheduling a date to “have the spot removed.”
“The doctors do not believe it has spread, and I’m taking tests to confirm their diagnosis. So, that’s it. No chemo. No radiation. Just chicken soup and I Love Lucy reruns,” he wrote.
The singer-songwriter announced that he needed “a month to recover” post-op, so he was cancelling scheduled concerts in January. (Manilow had been set to headline gigs in Florida, South Carolina, North Carolina, Georgia and Ohio this month.)
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“I’m very sorry that you have to change your plans,” he wrote to fans. “Just like you, we were all looking forward to the January shows and hate having to move everything around.”
Looking ahead, Manilow said he intends to return to the stage for his Valentine’s Day weekend concerts at Westgate Las Vegas on February 12-14.
“Something tells me that February weekend is going to be one big party!” Manilow concluded. “I hope you have a wonderful Christmas and a Happy New Year. And remember, if you have even the slightest symptom … get tested! I’ll see you at the Westgate Las Vegas for Valentine’s!”
Manilow has been open about his smoking habit over the years. He told The Evening Standard in 2012 that he’d “smoked for 30 years,” having originally started when he was only “9 years old.”
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“Then I stopped about 15, 20 years ago,” he clarified at the time. “Then I just started in Las Vegas and the band and I went down to a little club and somebody offered me a cigarette. And I was back. Within a week I was back. Not on a pack a day, cause when I was really smoking I was on three packs a day — non filters. Oh yeah. I was a great smoker.”
More recently, Manilow switched to vaping. Prior to his recent lung cancer diagnosis, Manilow battled bronchial pneumonia, an oral tumor and was diagnosed with squamous cell carcinoma — a form of throat cancer — in 2020. (Manilow underwent surgery and vocal therapy after his 2020 throat cancer diagnosis and eventually made a full recovery.)
In 2019, Manilow admitted to the Daily Mirror that he was willing to accept the consequences after a lifetime of smoking.
“I’m fine, I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop. I’m very old, I should not be able to do this,” he said. “You saw me going up those stairs on stage — there’s 14 steps up and 14 down, you would think I should be in a wheelchair or something.”
Manilow is being supported throughout his lung cancer recovery by his husband, Garry Kief, whom he married in 2014 after more than 35 years together.
