Joni Mitchell, 82, has officially become an American citizen, more than six decades after first arriving in the United States.
The Canadian-born singer posted a photo of herself holding an American flag along with video of her naturalization ceremony at a Department of Homeland Security office. “A journey that began 62 years ago,” she wrote on Instagram Tuesday.
Fellow musicians quickly congratulated her, including ex-boyfriend Graham Nash, who commented, “Congrats, Joan! Just in time to vote!”
Mitchell was born in Fort Macleod, Alberta, and was 21 when she moved to the US in 1965 with her first husband, folk singer Chuck Mitchell. The couple settled in Detroit before she moved to New York City in 1967 after the marriage ended.
In New York, Mitchell lived at 41 W. 16th St. in Chelsea, where she wrote songs including “Chelsea Morning.” She spent about a year there before relocating to Los Angeles in 1968, where the Laurel Canyon music scene shaped the next phase of her career.
She has called California home for much of her life since, living in Bel Air before settling in Santa Barbara. She married musician Larry Klein in 1982 and divorced him in 1994. Mitchell has one daughter, Kelly Dale Anderson, whom she placed for adoption as an infant in 1965 and reunited with in 1997.
Mitchell has long split her time between the US and Canada. “LA is my workplace, BC is my heartbeat,” she told the Ottawa Citizen in 2006.
The citizenship news comes after Mitchell’s rare return to Canada in March, when she accepted the Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2026 Juno Awards from Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney. She used the moment to weigh in on American politics, praising Carney while alluding to President Trump.
“I’m living in the States and you know what’s happening there,” Mitchell said, calling Canadians “so fortunate” to have Carney in power.
Her latest milestone follows a serious health setback in 2015, when she suffered a brain aneurysm.
“I had a [brain] aneurysm, which changed my life — oddly, for the better,” Mitchell said during her Juno Awards acceptance speech. “I went into a coma, which helped me to quit smoking. And my house filled up with the most wonderful nurses. I was on the road with men for years and years; now I live with a house full of women.”
Separately, director Cameron Crowe is developing a biopic about Mitchell, with Meryl Streep set to portray an older version of the music icon.
