Bruce Springsteen shares update on how wife Patti Scialfa is feeling amid 'tough' cancer battle

Music legend Bruce Springsteen revealed how his wife, Patti Scialfa, is doing amid her harrowing cancer battle. The 75-year-old rocker opened up about Patti, 71, in a teaser for the forthcoming ABC special, Bruce Springsteen: Backstage and Backstreets.

“She’s doing good,” Bruce said about Scialfa, who announced she was suffering from multiple myeloma , a form of blood cancer, last month.

“We caught it early, which was important,” the New Jersey native continued. “It’s a tough disease. It’s very fatiguing. She hadn’t played in the band in a long time, and people I don’t think knew why. ‘Where’s Patti?’”

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Scialfa was diagnosed with the disease back in 2018 and discussed her health issues in the documentary, Road Diary: Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, that was released in September. She found out about the cancer during the Springsteen on Broadway concert residency tour run.

“Touring has become a challenge for me,” she sighed in the documentary. “This affects my immune system, so I just have to be careful what I choose to do and where I choose to go.”

“Every once in a while, I come to a show or two and I can sing a few songs on stage, and that’s been a treat,” she explained. “That’s the new normal for me right now, and I’m OK with that.”

Scialfa has worked with the E Street Band since 1984, having also married Bruce in 1991. They share three children together, Evan, 34, Jessica, 32, and Sam, 30.

She had also been not present for much of the E Street Band’s current tour, which started in February 2023 and is set to conclude next July. The artist opted to stay focus on her health issues while the tour went on.

In 2023, Scialfa told the Asbury Park Press that her absence was mainly because she was working on a solo record and was devoting time to being a loving grandma to her son Sam's daughter, Lily, who was born in 2022.

“I didn’t feel as needed in a way because there were a lot of musicians on stage,” she said. “I did the first couple of shows, and as I saw how it was all rolling, I thought, ‘This is good. This is completely intact. There’s not much room for me to add anything special.’ “

According to the Cleveland Clinic , multiple myeloma is a type of cancer that forms when healthy plasma cells become abnormal cells that produce abnormal antibodies. The illness can affect one's bones, kidneys and one's ability to make healthy red and white blood cells. Symptoms can include bone and joint pain, loss of appetite, nausea, tiredness and rapid weight loss.