Barry Manilow Is Diagnosed With Lung Cancer [View all]

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Last edited Sun Dec 28, 2025, 10:00 AM - Edit history (1)

Barry Manilow Is Diagnosed With Lung Cancer

The “Mandy” and “Copacabana” singer said he would undergo surgery to remove a cancerous spot on his left lung, and he postponed several concert dates.

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By Derrick Bryson Taylor
Dec. 22, 2025

The singer Barry Manilow has been diagnosed with lung cancer and will undergo surgery, he announced in a social-media post on Monday. ... Manilow, 82, said he had been fighting bronchitis for more than two months when his doctors ordered an M.R.I.

The test “discovered a cancerous spot on my left lung that needs to be removed,” he wrote in a statement on Instagram. “It’s pure luck (and a great doctor) that it was found so early.”

He said that doctors did not think the cancer had spread and that he would have additional tests to confirm their diagnosis. ... “No chemo,” he added. “No radiation. Just chicken soup and I Love Lucy reruns.”

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Asked by The Times if he ever considered retiring, Manilow suggested that he did not. ... Using an expletive, he described himself as “old as the hills.” But, he added, “I can still hit an F natural.”

Derrick Bryson Taylor is a Times reporter covering breaking news in culture and the arts.

A version of this article appears in print on Dec. 24, 2025, Section C, Page 5 of the New York edition with the headline: Manilow to Have Surgery After Cancer Diagnosis. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

Let's add a video.

Barry Manilow - Copacabana (Live in Japan 1985)

Barry Manilow

429K subscribers

160,091 views Jun 7, 2022 OSAKA
Barry Manilow performs "Copacabana (At The Copa)" live, taken from "Live in Japan 1985"

A note from Barry about that show...

Live In Japan 1985
Osaka-jo Hall
Osaka City, Japan
June 6th, 1985

We were in Japan when we first saw this video. We were near the end of our Japanese tour when someone brought the DVD into my dressing room and we started to watch it.

It was the first time we’d ever seen and heard audio and video of that quality. We all flipped out.

It’s been a long time since I watched this one and the quality is just as terrific as I remembered it.

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