Iconic pop singer Barry ManilowBest known for classics ‘Mandy’ and ‘Copacabana’, he has made his first public appearance since undergoing a lobectomy to remove lung cancer. The 82-year-old musician was caught smiling on camera in New York on Friday, April 24, marking a major milestone in his recovery. It is her first public appearance since undergoing surgery in December 2025, four months ago, after being diagnosed with stage 1 lung cancer in November 2025.
How Barry Manilow the diagnosis came to light
The singer shared her health journey with fans in a Dec. 22 statement on her Facebook page, revealing that she would be rescheduling her farewell tour after discovering a “cancerous spot” in her left lung.“As many of you know, I recently had six weeks of bronchitis followed by another five weeks,” he said at the time. “Even though I got over my bronchitis and got back on stage, my wonderful doctor ordered an MRI to make sure everything was fine. The MRI found a cancerous spot in my left lung that needs to be removed, it’s pure luck and a great doctor to have found it so early. That’s good news.”In early January, the Grammy and Tony winner shared another update on social media, telling fans “Today’s Better!” along with a smiling selfie wearing a hospital gown. The following month, she announced via Instagram that she had a “very disappointing visit” to her surgeon and would have to postpone more tour dates because her “lungs weren’t ready yet.”
What Barry Manilow had to say about his experience
In March, Manilow opened up exclusively to the public about the diagnosis and what followed. “You don’t think about how fragile life is. And all of a sudden, you have lung cancer,” she said. “But I’m still here. I’m not all here; there’s a part of me that’s not here, a part of me was taken out, and now I have to figure out, ‘What do I do?'”Reflecting on how the cancerous spot was discovered, she said: “They don’t know how long I had this thing sitting around. It could have been years. If it had gone any further, then I’d be up in the stream of s—. It just so happened that it didn’t spread, and boy oh boy, I thought I was going to die.”Although he spent seven days in the ICU after the lobectomy, he remembered little of that time. “I don’t remember, thank goodness, because it was a nightmare. I’m one of the lucky ones, I don’t have to have chemo and radiation and all that stuff,” she said.
How a health scare changed Barry Manilow’s perspective
The experience has given Manilow a renewed sense of clarity about his life. “It’s really, really made me take stock of my life,” she told the outlet. “It made me stop and think: Have I done what I wanted to do, and have I made people happy? Have I been a good friend? All that cornball stuff I’ve read all my life, I started thinking about that, too. It really stopped me.”He added, “And the answers are yes. And actually, there are more yeses than I thought.”Manilow’s 33rd studio album, ‘What a Time’, is out on June 5th.
