Bruce Springsteen shares emotional update on wife Patti Scialfa’s ‘tough’ cancer battle

Bruce Springsteen’s life on the road and off was put under the spotlight in the documentary Road Diary: Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, which was released at the Toronto Film Festival last month.

However, one of the biggest revelations actually came from his wife and E Street Band member Patti Scialfa, who shared that she had been diagnosed with multiple myeloma, a form of blood cancer.

While she first received the diagnosis in 2018, she shared it for the first time in the documentary (which will be released on streaming later this month), and didn’t attend its premiere at TIFF either.

In a preview of a new ABC special Bruce, 75, is participating in with Good Morning America anchor George Stephanopoulos, the singer, known affectionately as “The Boss,” shared a bit more insight into his wife’s health battle.

“She’s doing good, we caught it early, which was important,” he shared, adding: “It’s a tough disease, it’s very fatiguing.”

In the documentary, Patti, 71, said of her disease: “This affects my immune system, so I have to be careful what I choose to do and where I choose to go.” She continues to tour and perform with her husband and their band.

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“Every once in a while, I come to a show or two and I can sing a few songs on stage, and that’s been a treat. That’s the new normal for me right now, and I’m OK with that.”

The rocker also stated that he would be opening up about some of his own health issues in the special, having postponed recent tour appearances with the E Street Band due to complications from peptic ulcer disease.

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During an interview with Sirius XM’s E Street Radio host Jim Rotolo after a show in March, Bruce opened up further about his condition and how it affected his ability to sing and perform.

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“Once I started singing, you know, you can rehearse singing, but your voice isn’t the same in rehearsal,” he shared, adding that the disease left him completely unable to perform. 

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“You don’t have that edge of adrenaline that really pushes it into a better place and the thing when I had the stomach problem, one of the big problems was I couldn’t sing.”

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“You sing with your diaphragm…My diaphragm was hurting so badly that when I went to make the effort to sing, it was killing me, you know?”

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That condition lasted for months, and “I literally couldn’t sing at all, you know, and that lasted for two or three months, along with just a myriad of other painful problems.”

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He was most afraid, however, of being unable to perform ever again. “I was, during the course of it, before people told me, ‘Oh no. It’s gonna go away, and you’re gonna be OK,’ you know, you’re thinking like, ‘Hey, am I gonna sing again?’ and you know, this is one of the things I love to do the best, the most, and right now I can’t do it.”