Barry Manilow has had “one” facelift.
The Copacabana hitmaker insists he has had no other cosmetic procedure to stay youthful at 82.
One Facelift
Award-winning singer-songwriter Barry told the Los Angeles Times, “I look fantastic, but I’m 100 years old, right? I don’t know how that happened, by the way – I don’t get Botox or anything.”
He corrected himself after insisting he had “no” work done, adding, “There was one time when we lived in LA that I did do a facelift. But after that, it’s just been a little here, a little there.”
Barry then explained, “‘Work’ is like a facelift, and I only had one of those. The rest of it – I see something falling down, sure, I’ll do that. I’m as vain as anybody else.”
“One of my old friends, his mother said, ‘I always knew he was talented, but when did he get so handsome?'”
Cancer Diagnosis
Barry also spoke about his stage 1 lung cancer diagnosis in December, after a “cancerous tumor” was found on his left lung during an MRI scan, which a doctor ordered following the singer’s bouts of bronchitis.
The Mandy hitmaker – who had the cancerous tumor removed and has been free of the disease since March – admitted he “never thought cancer would get me, it wasn’t in the cards.”
Explaining his belief, Barry added, “I’m too busy. Pretty stupid. What I realized is that I’ve always been the leader – leader of the band, leader of an audience – but I wasn’t the leader of this one.
“That was a big lesson for me. I had to rely on everybody else. Nurses, doctors, friends – you should see some of the notes people have sent.”
Manilow shared how he “weighed 128 pounds” after the surgery. Then, “AFib kicked in, and acid reflux kicked in, and pneumonia kicked in”, which forced Barry to spend a week in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU).
On the Road to Recovery
He was forced to postpone multiple concert dates to remove a cancerous spot from his left lung, and planned to get back on stage in January.
But five months later, Barry is yet to return to the stage because his recovery is taking longer than expected, which he declared was “agony.”
He added, “Make an album, go on the road, come back, make an album, go on the road – that’s what my life’s been for years. And I like it. Now I just have to get better and do what the doctors are telling me. It’s the only way out.”