Lou Reed says he’s feeling “bigger and stronger than ever” after undergoing a recent liver transplant. Reed’s wife, artist Laurie Anderson, broke the transplant news late last week, saying the former Velvet Underground singer had been “dying” before undergoing the procedure. It’s not clear exactly why Reed needed a transplant, though his early years of hard living probably didn’t help.
In a statement, Reed says that, post-transplant, he’s “a triumph of modern medicine, physics, and chemistry” and credits both the doctors at the Cleveland Clinic and his 30-year commitment to Tai Chi with saving his life. According to Anderson, it will take Reed a few months to bounce back from the surgery, though he “won’t ever totally recover."
Reed was scheduled to perform several shows this past March as well as at Coachella, but he cancelled all those dates, citing “unavoidable complications.”