Kimberly Williams-Paisley has been living in silence for two years. The Father of the Bride star revealed she lost the ability to speak until recently.
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In 2022, her voice disappeared, and the actor struggled to speak louder than a whisper.
"I felt trapped in my own body," Williams-Paisley told People. "There was so much shame involved," she says. "I felt invisible."
Williams-Paisley would eventually learn that her left vocal cord was partially paralyzed. In August, she finally had surgery to correct the problem. "I had to fight to be heard," she says. "Now, no matter what my physical voice is, my voice underneath is stronger. I feel more confident. I know myself better."
Williams-Paisley was in the middle of her annual Fundraiser for Alzheimer's, the Dance Party to End ALZ, when she found that she couldn't talk. It was terrifying.
I put the mic to my mouth, and nothing came out. It was terrifying," Williams-Paisley said. "I thought, 'I need hot tea and vocal rest.' I went to self-blame —'I'm not breathing properly, I'm not relying on my vocal training.' I was beating myself up." But her voice didn't come back.
Kimberly Williams-Paisley Speaks Out
Nothing seemed to help. It took a drain on her mental health.
Williams-Paisley said, "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."
In 2023, doctors discovered that her neck muscles had constricted her vocal cords. Her neck muscles were so tight that her vocal cords weren't visible.
"When we first saw her, it was hard to tell what was happening to the vocal cords themselves," says Dr. Gaelyn Garrett, executive medical director of the Voice Center.
She began physical therapy and treatment for the issue, but nothing seemed to help. She tried a nighttime mouthpiece, antidepressants, hypnosis, and even a psychic.
"There were days when I grieved and sobbed," Williams-Paisley says. "I wondered, 'Who am I without my voice?' I started coming up with other ways to express myself." She turned to writing.
After months of trying to relax her neck muscles, doctors determined her left vocal cord wasn't doing right. It was possibly caused by a virus.
"Once I got that diagnosis, my body could relax in a whole new way," she says. "The shame and blame dissipated. It was largely a technical issue, not something I did wrong."
Williams-Paisley went under to get a laryngoplasty. Almost immediately, her voice came back.
"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 than I used to, but I think that's sexy,' she says. "And I've learned that when you talk quieter, people lean in, which is not bad either."
