1943-present
Who Is Carly Simon?
Singer-songwriter Carly Simon was born on June 25, 1943, in New York City. She won a Grammy for Best New Artist in 1971. In 1972, she had her first hit single, "You're So Vain." That same year she married musician James Taylor. They had two children, but divorced in 1983. She was the first artist to have won three major awards — Oscar, Grammy and Golden Globe — for a single track, hers being in 1988 for the song "Let the River Run." In 2008, she released the album This Kind of Love.
Quick Facts
FULL NAME: Carly Elisabeth Simon
BORN: June 25, 1943
BIRTHPLACE: New York, New York
SPOUSE: James Taylor (1972-1983) and James Hart (1986-2007)
CHILDREN: Sally and Ben
ASTROLOGICAL SIGN: Cancer
Early Life and The Simon Sisters
Carly Elisabeth Simon was born on June 25, 1943 in New York, New York. Her father, Richard L. Simon, was a classical pianist and co-founder of the publishing company Simon & Schuster, and her mother, Andrea Heinemann, was an activist and singer. Growing up in a musical household in the Bronx with her brother Peter and sisters Lucy and Joanna, she took an interest in music at an early age.
At 6 years old, Simon developed a severe stutter, which made talking difficult, so she soon turned to singing. “My mother taught me how to speak with rhythm,” she recalled to Brain & Life in 2009. “Because everyone in the family knew that it was very hard for me to speak but very easy to sing, we began to sing around the house all the time, telling each other to go to bed, or get up, or come to dinner.” Eventually, Simon overcame her stutter by the time she was a teenager, though she continued to struggle in school due to her dyslexia.
After graduating Riverdale Country School in 1961, Simon enrolled in Sarah Lawrence College but dropped out after a few semesters to form a band with her sister Lucy aptly named The Simon Sisters. The folk duo made their television debut on the show Hootenanny in April 1963 and went on to record three albums: Meet the Simon Sisters (1964), Cuddlebug (1966), and The Simon Sisters Sing the Lobster Quadrille and Other Songs for Children (1969). The Simon Sisters came to an abrupt end, however, when Lucy got married and started a family, leaving Carly to pursue a solo career.
Solo Career
After signing with Elekra Records, Simon released her first self-titled solo album in 1971, featuring the hit “That the Way I’ve Always Heard It Should Be,” which won the singer her first Grammy Award for Best New Artist in 1972. From there, she quickly ascended to fame, becoming one of the most popular singer-songwriters of the decade.
That same year, Simon delivered her first hit single “You're So Vain,” a song that has stirred up years of debate on whom she was singing about. After decades of mystery, Simon admitted in 2015 that the second verse of the song was about actor Warren Beatty but that two other unnamed men inspired the rest of the song. (People have speculated that the mystery men could be James Taylor, Mick Jagger, Cat Stevens or Kris Kristofferson—all of whom she had been involved with previously.)
In 1973, Simon released another hit single, “The Right Thing to Do” and the following year found instant success with the album Hotcakes. She released The Best of Carly Simon greatest hits album in 1975, which turned triple platinum in the U.S.
After experiencing a slump for a couple years, Simon soared back with her James Bond-themed song "Nobody Does It Better," which became an international hit and garnered her Grammy nominations. She released Boys in the Trees (1978) and secured her platinum record-making status once again.
Simon's career took a bit of a downturn for most of the '80s, but towards the latter half of the decade, she rebounded with the album Coming Around Again (1987), with its title track featured in the film Heartburn and garnering a Grammy nomination. During this time, Simon contributed to many films and television scores.
Simon's experience as a mother inspired her to record a children's album that won a Best Recording for Children Grammy in 1980. Her biggest musical success during the 1980s came with “Let the River Run,” a song written for the movie Working Girl (1988). For the composition, she won her third Grammy, her first Oscar, and a Golden Globe—making her the first artist to have won all three major awards for composing, writing, and performing one song.
Continuing to record, Simon went on to release several more albums, including 2008's This Kind of Love and Never Been Gone (2009). The singer is set to drop her first record in nearly two decades with Comes in Waves in August 2026.
Books
Simon added children's book author to her long list of accomplishments in 1989 with the publication of Amy the Dancing Bear. This was soon followed by The Boy of the Bells (1990) and Midnight Farm (1997). The singer has also authored two memoirs, writing about her music career and first marriage in Boys in the Trees: A Memoir (2015) before reflecting on her friendship with Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis in Touched by the Sun: My Friendship with Jackie (2019).
Ex-Husband James Taylor and Kids
Simon married fellow songsmith James Taylor in 1972. Quickly becoming the royal couple of 1970s folk rock, she and Taylor had two children together, welcoming their daughter Sally in 1974 and son Ben in 1977. After 11 years of marriage, Simon divorced Taylor in 1983 and went on to marry poet James Hart, a poet in 1987. She and Hart later split up in 2007.
Health Issues
In the late 1990s, Simon successfully fought a publicized battle with breast cancer. Three decades later, in July 2026, the singer revealed that she has been living with Parkinson’s disease and recently underwent surgery for skin cancer. “Between my mobility issues, the Parkinson’s diagnosis, the surgery, and the emotional effects of it all, withdrawing from public view was the most palatable reaction,” she said in a statement. “But I have not stopped living, and I have not stopped working.” In the midst of her health struggles, Simon recorded a new studio album, Comes in Waves, which arrives August 14.
Net Worth
As of July 2026, Simon has an estimated net worth of $80 million, according to Celebrity Net Worth.
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