After announcing the details of his first new studio album of mostly new material in nearly 15 years on Monday (March 23), What a Time, Barry Manilow is opening up for the first time about his “nightmare” lung cancer diagnosis and treatment. The 82-year-old singer spoke to People magazine about the treatment for stage one lung cancer that had him thinking he might not make it.
“You just don’t even think about [how fragile life is]. And suddenly, you have lung cancer. 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?’” said Manilow, who described going initially going to a doctor in November for hip pain that turned into a more serious diagnosis. Unexpectedly, a pelvic MRI expanded to a scan of his lungs when the doctor heard that the singer had suffered through two recent bouts of bronchitis.
“If he hadn’t done that, man … 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 told People. “They called me and said, ‘Could be cancer.’ That’s a bad word. ‘Not me. F–k you. I can’t have cancer.’”
When the tests revealed that Manilow indeed had stage one lung cancer he said it wasn’t clear how long it had been in his body. “It could have been years,” he said. “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.”
Four weeks after the diagnosis, Manilow was hospitalized for a lobectomy to remove one of his left lung’s two lobes, followed by seven days in the ICU after surgery. Manilow said he doesn’t remember his “nightmare” hospital stay and that he is grateful that he didn’t have to undergo further invasive treatments such as chemotherapy or radiation.
On Dec. 22, Manilow announced his diagnosis of early-stage lung cancer and his surgery, giving fans an update on March 3 in an upbeat video in which he said, “I am getting stronger and I have great doctors and wonderful friends and family, but I am so looking forward to getting back on stage.”
Primarily produced by Manilow and longtime collaborator Michael Lloyd, What a Time is Manilow’s 33rd studio album and his collection of mostly original songs since 2011’s 15 Minutes; that LP was his 15th top 10 album on the Billboard 200. Manilow wrote or co-wrote all but two of the 13 tracks and he and Lloyd co-produced none of the 13.
“It has really, really made me take stock of my life. 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?,” Manilow told People about the stock-taking he’s done in the wake of his health scare. “All of those cornball things that I’ve read for all of my life, I started to think about that, too. It [cancer] really did stop me in my tracks. And the answers are yes. And as a matter of fact, there are more yeses than I ever thought.”
The cancer scare also resulted in the postponement of his ongoing farewell arena tour, which is slated to pick up again on April 13 with a show at UBS Arena in Belmont Park, N.Y. and is currently booked to run through a Jan. 21, 2027 gig at the Kia Center in Orlando, Fla.
