Patti Scialfa, a longtime member of the band E Street and wife of Bruce Springsteen, confirmed that she has been battling blood cancer for about six years.
Scialfa, 71, made the disclosure in “Road Diary: Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band,” the world tour documentary that premiered Sunday at the Toronto International Film Festival. He was not present at the film’s festival premiere, which was attended by Springsteen, his manager Jon Landau and bandmate Steven Van Zandt.
The musician said she has multiple myeloma, which occurs when cancerous plasma cells build up in the bone marrow and crowd out healthy blood cells, according to the Mayo Clinic.
“Touring has become a challenge for me. In 2018, while Bruce and I were doing the play on Broadway, [‘Springsteen on Broadway’]“I was diagnosed with early-stage multiple myeloma and this affects my immune system,” Scialfa says in the documentary.
He added that he has to “be careful about what I choose to do and where I choose to go” because of the illness.
“Every now and then I come to a show or two and I get to sing a few songs on stage. And that’s been a pleasure. It’s the normal thing for me at this point. And I’m fine with that,” she said during an interview in the documentary that shows footage of her performing on stage over the years.
Scialfa has been a member of the band E Street since 1984, the only woman in the group. She sings backing vocals, plays tambourine and guitar. She married The Boss in 1991, after he divorced actress Julianne Phillips in 1989, and has toured and sung with the 74-year-old superstar for years.
“It’s always fun to sing ‘Fire.’ It’s very personal in a way. You get to see a side of our relationship that you don’t normally get to see,” Scialfa says in the film over footage of her and Springsteen’s duet. “Being back on stage with Bruce is a blast… Every night of this tour gives the band a chance to celebrate.”
Meanwhile, Springsteen has also been in the news over the past year. Last year, the “Dancing in the Dark” and “Born in the USA” singer postponed several shows due to his digestive condition, peptic ulcer, which is not mentioned in the documentary. Later that month, he and the E Street Band announced the postponement of the remaining dates of their 2023 tour so he could continue receiving treatment.
The tour resumed in March with 11 rescheduled U.S. shows, including two at SoFi Stadium, before heading to Europe and then returning to the U.S. The tour hits Baltimore on Friday, plays in Asbury Park, New Jersey, two days later and then heads to Canada for shows that run through the end of November. After another hiatus, the band will return to Europe in 2025.
In an interview with The Times last week, Van Zandt confirmed that Springsteen is doing “remarkably well.”
“[H]“He’s fully recovered,” the guitarist said. “I think we did the right thing, we didn’t take any risks, we took some extra time and let him recover. And he’s been fantastic, in very good shape.”
The documentary, which will begin streaming on Hulu and Disney+ on Oct. 25, takes a closer look at preparations for the ongoing 2023-2024 world tour that reunited the rock star with his band after taking an extended hiatus to work on solo projects and his Broadway show.
