Kimberly Williams-Paisley opens up about being ‘trapped in my own body’ by health crisis

Kimberly Williams-Paisley is opening up about her “fight to be heard” during her two year struggle with voice loss.

The Father of the Bride actress has revealed that due to a partial paralysis of her left vocal cord, her voice disappeared in fall of 2022 and she was unable to speak above a whisper.

“I felt trapped in my own body,” Williams-Paisley told PEOPLE for the magazine’s recent cover story.  “There was so much shame involved. I felt invisible.” 

The ordeal began in November 2022, when she and sister Ashley Williams took the stage to host their annual fundraiser for Alzheimer’s, the Dance Party to End ALZ. 

“I put the mic to my mouth, and nothing came out,” Williams-Paisley recalled. “It was terrifying.”

That said, she had no reason to assume the worst and initially believed that she had just strained her voice. “‘I need hot tea and vocal rest,'” she recalled thinking. But then days turned to weeks and she could still manage only a faint whisper. 

“I went to self-blame,” she admitted. “‘I’m not breathing properly, I’m not relying on my vocal training. I was beating myself up.”

She turned to a series of different remedies in the hopes of bringing her voice back, but neither acupuncture nor hiring a vocal coach led to any improvements. She hit a breaking point in 2023, while walking the red carpet for her Netflix movie, Dog Gone, where she realized that it was too loud for her to actually give interviews. 

“I sounded weak, and it’s not how I felt,” she said. “I went into the bathroom and cried, and a couple of friends held my hand.”

From there, the health crisis continued taking a mental and emotional toll on her daily life. She found herself “cycling anxiety thoughts in the middle of the night” and experiencing days where she “didn’t want to do anything.”

” I wouldn’t say I had clinical depression, but I was sad,” she shared. 

Williams-Paisely credits her husband — country singer husband Brad Paisley — and their two sons with helping her push through. She noted that Brad often lightened the mood (“He’s so good at keeping me laughing”) and that their sons always stood by her, despite seeing her at her most vulnerable. 

“To see them embracing me made me feel less alone,” she added.

In early 2023, the Nashville actress made an appointment with the Vanderbilt Voice Center, where she learned that her neck muscles were so tight that her vocal cords were barely visible. She was diagnosed with muscle tension dysphonia, and began physical therapy to help her “body to unlock.” When her voice still didn’t return, the actress began to fear that it was permanently gone.

“There were days when I grieved and sobbed,” she said. “I wondered, ‘Who am I without my voice?’”

In August, Williams-Paisely underwent a three-hour surgery, known as medialization laryngoplasty, which finally brought her voice back.

“I couldn’t believe it was true,” said Williams-Paisley, who clarified that her voice is “much better” now but not quite back to the way it was. “I still can’t yell down the road. And at the end of a long day of talking, I’ll sound a little more raspy than I used to, but I think that’s sexy. And I’ve learned that when you talk quieter, people lean in, which is not bad either.”

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The whole ordeal has left her feeling changed for the better.

 “I feel empowered now,” she shared.” I don’t want to leave things unsaid. I never want to take my voice for granted — and I want to be brave in using it.”

Williams-Paisley is next set to host of the fourth season of the Fox reality dating series Farmer Wants a Wife.