Barry Manilow Opens up About His “Nightmare” Lung Cancer Diagnosis

Barry Manilow is opening up about his battle with lung cancer. The iconic singer, who is 82, got candid about the “nightmare” he’s going through in a new interview with People.

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“You just don’t even think about [how fragile life is]. And suddenly, you have lung cancer,” Manilow, who announced his diagnosis in December, told the outlet. “But I’m still here. I’m not all here; there’s part of me that isn’t here—they took out a part of me, and now I’ve got to figure out, ‘What do I do?’”

Manilow received his stage 1 diagnosis after doctors ordered an MRI of his pelvis amid hip pain, and of his lungs due to two bouts of bronchitis.

“He saved my life, because there’s no symptoms for what I had. I could go on, nothing hurt—but they found the dot in my lung,” Manilow said. “They called me and said, ‘Could be cancer.’ That’s a bad word. ‘Not me. F**k you. I can’t have cancer.’”

“They don’t even know how long I had this thing sitting on me. It could have been years,” he added. “If it had gone any further, then I would be up s**t’s creek. It just so happened that it hadn’t spread, and boy oh boy, I thought I might be dying.”

Barry Manilow on His Cancer Treatment and Recovery

One month after he received his diagnosis, Manilow underwent a successful lobectomy, after which he spent seven days in the ICU.

“I don’t remember it, thank goodness, because it was a nightmare,” Manilow said of his time in the hospital. “I’m one of the lucky ones; I don’t have to have chemo, radiation, and all that stuff.”

Now, Manilow has officially been declared cancer-free. The whole experience, however, made the singer “take stock of my life,” he said.

“This made me stop and think about: Have I done what I wanted to do, and have I made people happy? Have I been a good friend? All of those cornball things that I’ve read for all of my life, I started to think about that, too. It really did stop me in my tracks,” he said. “And the answers are yes. And as a matter of fact, there are more yeses than I ever thought.”

In the wake of the news, the singer is set to resume his farewell tour. He’s also gearing up to release his 33rd studio album, What a Time, on June 5.

“This really rocked me,” he said, “but I’m getting stronger.”

Photo by Scott Legato/Getty Images