Joni Mitchell Lost Her Ability To Speak After Suffering Aneurysm, Says Friend David Crosby

Acclaimed Canadian singer-songwriter Joni Mitchell suffered an aneurysm that resulted in her loss of speech, longtime friend and musician David Crosby said in an interview. Crosby, in an interview withHuffPost Live Friday, talked about Mitchell’s admittance to a Los Angeles hospital March 31.

“To my knowledge, she is not speaking yet,” Crosby said. “She is home, she is in care, she is recovering. How that’s going to go, we don’t know yet. She took a terrible hit. She had an aneurysm.”

According to a statement posted to her website in late April, Mitchell, 71, was still in the hospital at that time but was expected to make “a full recovery.” The statement denied she was in a coma but offered no other details about her condition.

"She's going to have to struggle back from it, the way you struggle back from a traumatic brain injury,” Crosby added. "How much she's going to come back and when, I don't know and I'm not going to guess.”

Crosby dated Mitchell briefly in 1967 and has remained friends with the folksinger, who had several influential hits like “Big Yellow Taxi” and “Woodstock” in the late 1960s. Her 1971 album “Blue” is frequently hailed as one of the most influential albums of its time.