Sheryl Crow reveals she has brain tumor

Sheryl Crow reveals she has brain tumor

When Sheryl Crow forgot the lyrics to Soak Up the Sun last month while performing in Florida, she knew something might be wrong.

At the time, she joked, "I'm 50, what can I say? My brain's gone to (expletive)."

But now she has revealed that she has a benign brain tumor. In an interview with the Las Vegas Review-Journal, Crow admitted that she went to see a doctor in November. "I worried about my memory so much that I went and got an MRI. And I fou nd out I have a brain tumor."

The singer sounds casual, saying her doctor said not to worry about it, "but it gives me a fit." In 2006, Crow, mom to sons Wyatt and Levi, battled breast cancer.

Apparently, though, forgetting the words isn't something new to Crow.

She says in the interview that at the Hard Rock Hotel in the 1990s, she forgot the intro to A Change Would Do You Good. "Not only could I not remember the first line, I couldn't remember the first line to any of the verses. I started laughing so hard!"

Crow's rep, Christine Wolff, tells AP that the tumor is a meningioma and it typically benign and develops from the protective linings of the brain and spinal cord. The rep says Crow is doing great and is healthy and happy.

Anders Cohen, M.D., Chief of Neurosurgery and Spine Surgery at The Brooklyn Hospital Center, tells Lifeline Live, "Approximately 15 percent of adult brain tumors are benign, and we don't know what causes them."

Cohen says that generally a tumor that affects memory would be located in the left frontal lobe of the brain. "Ms. Crow speaks about memory issues, and that is definitely the kind of symptom that could be caused by this type of tumor," Cohen says, adding, "We usually don't remove benign tumors unless they are sizable or cause symptoms."