Kimberly Williams-Paisley is opening up about enduring a medical ordeal for two years.
In her People magazine cover story published on Wednesday, the Father of the Bride actress and wife to Brad Paisley shared that in the fall of 2022, her voice disappeared and she couldn’t speak louder than a whisper for two years due to a voice disorder.
“I felt trapped in my own body,” Williams-Paisley said. “There was so much shame involved. I felt invisible.” As a result she turned down acting jobs and withdrew from loved ones.
Williams-Paisley would go on to learn that she had a partial paralysis of her left vocal cord and had to undergo surgery to correct the problem. “I had to fight to be heard. Now, no matter what my physical voice is, my voice underneath is stronger. I feel more confident. I know myself better,” she said.
When looking back at when she first began noticing issues with her voice, Williams-Paisley recalled being unable to speak during a fundraiser event, the Dance Party to End ALZ, in November 2022. The event honors their mother, who died of dementia. When taking the stage, Williams-Paisley recalled, “I put the mic to my mouth and nothing came out. It was terrifying.”
She originally thought she had simply strained her voice and needed “hot tea and vocal rest,” but after only managing a faint whisper even weeks later she knew something was wrong. “I went to self-blame — ‘I’m not breathing properly, I’m not relying on my vocal training,’” she said. “I was beating myself up.”
She enlisted help from a voice coach, acupuncture and massage. But two months went by and nothing helped. She said during the premiere of her Netflix film Dog Gone, she was unable to do red carpet interviews because the environment was too loud for her voice to be heard.
“I sounded weak, and it’s not how I felt. I went into the bathroom and cried, and a couple of friends held my hand,” she said. She would go on to experience “cycling anxiety” and feelings of sadness everyday.
In early 2023 she made an appointment with the Vanderbilt Voice Center, which is where she learned that her neck muscles were so tight, her vocal cords were barely visible. She was diagnosed with muscle tension dysphonia. “The muscles in my neck were tensing up to help my vocal cords hit each other,” Williams-Paisley said of the diagnosis.
To get her “body to unlock,” Williams-Paisley routinely did physical therapy, and a specialist helped try to realign her body and gave her a nighttime mouthpiece to help relax the muscles. When her voice still didn’t return, the actress thought that perhaps her voice was just gone from then on: “There were days when I grieved and sobbed. I wondered, ‘Who am I without my voice?’”
Williams-Paisley ultimately turned to surgery, undergoing a three-hour procedure known as medialization laryngoplasty. In the procedure, her weak left vocal cord was moved closer to the right. Her voice returned after the procedure.
Still recovering, the actress said she “can’t yell down the road” and will “sound a little more raspy” after a “long day of talking.”
Amid her progressing vocal strength, Williams-Paisley is set to host of the fourth season of the Fox reality dating series Farmer Needs a Wife.
“I feel empowered now,” she said.” I don’t want to leave things unsaid. I never want to take my voice for granted — and I want to be brave in using it.”
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