Neil Diamond is coming to terms with what he calls a “hurricane” of a life after his Parkinson’s disease diagnosis.
The legendary 82-year-old singer-songwriter announced he has Parkinson’s, a disorder that affects the nervous system, in 2018, but he has now opened up about it taking time for him to accept the change in his health in a new interview with CBS Sunday Morning.
“I think this has just been in the last few weeks,” Diamond said, explaining when he’d come to grips with it. “I’m still doing it. And I don’t like it. This is the hand that God’s given me, and I have to make the best of it, and so I am.”
Diamond added that a “calm has moved [into] the hurricane of my life, and things have gotten very quiet, as quiet as this recording studio. And I like it. I find that I like myself better. I’m easier on people. I’m easier on myself. And the beat goes on, and it will go on long after I’m gone.”
The musician was honest and pragmatic, but he also expressed his gratitude for his less challenging days. “I can’t really fight this thing, so I had to accept it, this Parkinson’s Disease,” Diamond said. “There’s no cure. There’s no getting away from it. You can’t just say, ‘Okay, enough already. Let’s get back to life.’ It doesn’t work like that. But I’ve come to accept what limitations I have, and still have great days.”
One of those great days involved an impromptu performance of “Sweet Caroline” during the opening night of A Beautiful Noise, the Broadway musical based on his life and music, at New York’s Broadhurst Theatre in December. It marked his first performance since he revealed his diagnosis and the subsequent news that he’d be retiring from touring some five years ago.
Diamond called watching the production “psychotherapy,” telling CBS Sunday Morning, “It hurt. I didn’t like looking at myself in many of the scenes. It all was pretty hard.”
He continued, “I was a little embarrassed, I was flattered, and I was scared. Being found out is the scariest thing you can hope, because we all have a facade, and the truth be known to all of ’em, I’m not some big star. I’m just me.”
