Joni Mitchell celebrates new American citizenship after 62 years in U.S.
Joni Mitchell attends the 2026 Grammy Awards at Los Angeles' Crypto.com Arena on Feb. 1. Credit: Los Angeles Times / TNS / Christina House
LOS ANGELES — Folk music legend Joni Mitchell became a U.S. citizen on Tuesday, the end of "a journey that began 62 years ago," she wrote on social media.
Mitchell, 82, on Wednesday posted a photo of herself on X standing in front of a large U.S. flag while holding a smaller one. She also included a four-second video of the citizenship ceremony in which hoots and applause are heard after the administrator calls out, "Joni Mitchell, Canada."
She was born Roberta Joan Anderson on Nov. 7, 1943, in Fort Macleod, Alberta, to Bill, a grocer, and Myrtle, a schoolteacher, according to her official site. The family moved to Saskatchewan after World War II, eventually settling in Saskatoon, the city she considers her hometown.
The singer of hits including "Big Yellow Taxi," "River," "Both Sides, Now" and "California" first arrived in the United States as a relative unknown in the summer of 1965 along with her musician husband, Chuck Mitchell. The couple landed in Detroit, but Joni moved to New York City in 1967 after divorcing. Later that year, she moved in with singer David Crosby in Southern California, and in 1968, she bought a bungalow in Los Angeles' Laurel Canyon neighborhood with Crosby's bandmate, Graham Nash, becoming a central figure in the area's bustling folk scene.
In 1974, she purchased a Spanish Colonial house in L.A.'s Bel-Air neighborhood that she still owns. A five-bedroom Malibu beachfront property, which she later acquired, is currently listed for sale for $25 to $27 million.
Mitchell won the first of her 11 Grammy Awards for folk performance for "Clouds" in 1970. Her most recent was awarded in February when she was honored for historical album along with Patrick Milligan and Bernie Grundman for "Joni Mitchell Archives — Volume 4: The Asylum Years (1976-1980)."
