Kimberly Williams-Paisley Opens Up About Condition That Left Her Silent for Years

Published: December 23, 2024

Kimberly Williams-Paisley Opens Up About Condition That Left Her Silent for Years

By Movieguide® Contributor

Kimberly Williams-Paisley opened up to PEOPLE about her vocal cord issue that left her unable to speak for two years. The actress shared how the silence not only affected her physically but emotionally as well.

“There was so much shame involved,” she said. “I felt invisible.”

“I had to fight to be heard,” she added. “Now, no matter what my physical voice is, my voice underneath is stronger. I feel more confident. I know myself better.”

The vocal issue began in November 2022 in the worst of circumstances. While on stage to speak at an Alzheimer’s fundraiser to honor her mother who died from the disease in 2016, she went to the mic to welcome guests. When she opened her mouth, no sound came out.

“I put the mic to my mouth, and nothing came out. It was terrifying,” Williams-Paisley recalled.

PEOPLE said, “She’d experienced vocal weakness in previous years but nothing like this. At first, she assumed she’d strained her voice: ‘I thought, “I need hot tea and vocal rest.”’ But days, and then weeks, went by, and she could still manage only a faint whisper. ‘I went to self-blame —”I’m not breathing properly, I’m not relying on my vocal training,”’ she says. ‘I was beating myself up.’”

The problem persisted, and Williams-Paisley became sad: “Days when I didn’t want to do anything. Days when I was extra tired. Cycling anxiety thoughts in the middle of the night. I wouldn’t say I had clinical depression, but I was sad.”

After going to a voice clinic to diagnose the issue, she found out the issue was muscle tension dysphonia, which Hopkins Medicine describes as “a change in the sound or feel of your voice due to excessive muscle tension in and around the voice box.”

Williams-Paisley attempted various therapies with no success. When she went back for another appointment, doctors determined she needed surgery on her vocal cords. She had a surgery called a “medialization laryngoplasty” which brought her weak left vocal cord closer to the right.

“I was awake for the three-hour laryngoplasty to plump up my paralyzed vocal cord so it hits the other one (she’s so happy not to be doing all the work by herself anymore. She was EXHAUSTED),” she wrote in an Instagram post earlier this year. “I watched a lot of it on a video screen above my head as it happened and all I can say is MODERN MEDICINE IS MIRACULOUS.”

Although her voice is not completely back to normal, it is much better, which is worth celebrating.

“I still can’t yell down the road. And at the end of a long day of talking, I’ll sound a little more raspy…And I’ve learned that when you talk quieter, people lean in, which is not bad either,” Williams-Paisley said.