After more than 60 years of living in the U.S., Joni Mitchell has become an American citizen.
On Tuesday, the 82-year-old singer-songwriter posted a photo and video on Instagram of her citizenship ceremony with the caption, “A journey that began 62 years ago.”
Mitchell was a promising young Canadian folk singer when she first moved to the U.S. in the mid-1960s during her short-lived marriage to American musician Chuck Mitchell. After spending time in Detroit and New York, following her divorce in 1967, she eventually settled in southern California, where her career skyrocketed as she became a leading voice in the burgeoning Laurel Canyon music scene.
Mitchell now resides in Santa Barbara and also maintains a second residence on B.C.’s Sunshine Coast. She is expected to continue maintaining her Canadian citizenship, as both countries allow for multiple nationalities.
Mitchell has not made a public statement about why she finally chose to become a U.S. citizen. During a concert in Los Angeles in October 2024, she reportedly shared a four-letter expletive for Donald Trump during his campaign for a second presidency.
“Everybody get out and vote,” Mitchell added, according to Billboard. “This is an important one. I wish I could vote – I’m Canadian. I’m one of those lousy immigrants.”
Mitchell is best known for songs like “Big Yellow Taxi” and “Woodstock” as well as critically acclaimed albums like “Blue” from 1971, which has been cited as one of the greatest records of all time.
Mitchell was born Roberta Joan Anderson on Nov. 7, 1943, in Fort Macleod, Alta. Her father was a Royal Canadian Air Force officer, and the family moved throughout Western Canada until eventually settling in Saskatchewan.
“Everybody carries their childhood, I mean Saskatchewan is in my veins,” Mitchell told CTV’s former morning show Canada AM in a 2005 interview. “That stark beauty and the smell of it, the sages and so on.”
Over the course of Mitchell’s decades-long career, the genre-defying artist has won five Junos and 11 Grammys, including a pair of lifetime achievement awards. She was also inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1997 and received the Order of Canada in 2004.
At the 2026 Juno Awards in Hamilton, Ont., Prime Minister Mark Carney presented Mitchell with a lifetime achievement award.
“I’m so glad to be here tonight with our wonderful prime minster, we are so fortunate to have him,” Mitchell said from the stage in March. “I’m living in the States, and you know what’s happening there.”
In 2015, Mitchell’s career was paused following a brain aneurysm rupture that impacted her speech and mobility. After a long and challenging recovery, she made a triumphant return to performing in 2022.
“If you’re going to lump me in, I think, with anybody, you’ve got to lump me in with [Bob] Dylan and Leonard [Cohen],” Mitchell said in a 1994 interview with the show The New Music. “There are really only three writers of all the generations in music, and of the three, I’m more musically adventuresome.”
