Joni Mitchell Officially Granted U.S. Citizenship After 60+ Years

Joni Mitchell has officially become a U.S. citizen 62 years after first traveling from Canada to the United States—though she’s lived in Southern California since the late ’60s.

Legendary singer-songwriter Joni Mitchell is officially a U.S. citizen, more than 60 years after she first traveled from Canada to the United States. Though the 82-year-old icon has lived in Southern California since the late 1960s, her new citizenship enables her to vote.

Her fellow folk legend and ex-boyfriend Graham Nash was eager to congratulate Mitchell on that fact, commenting on her Instagram post, “Congrats, Joan! Just in time to vote!”

Mitchell was born in Canada and considers Saskatoon her hometown. She first traveled to the U.S. in 1965 with then-husband Chuck Mitchell, and the couple lived in Detroit for several years. Mitchell lived in New York City briefly before relocating to Southern California, where she has remained ever since. She currently lives in Santa Barbara.

Her house in Laurel Canyon, which she purchased in 1968, became a major hub for musicians of the time, including then-boyfriend Nash, as well as David Crosby. Nash himself is originally from England but became a U.S. citizen in 1978.

It is unclear why Mitchell waited so long to obtain U.S. citizenship, though she has said in the past that she considers Los Angeles her “workplace” and her property in British Columbia her “heartbeat.” That said, she only recently returned to Canada after many years away to accept a Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2026 Juno Awards.

Mitchell, a lifelong activist, has made her distaste for the actions of Donald Trump and his administration very clear, expressing to the crowd during a concert at the Hollywood Bowl in 2024 that she wished she could vote in the U.S.

“Fuck Donald Trump. I wish I could vote,” she told the audience. “I’m a Canadian—I’m one of those lousy immigrants.”

Joni Mitchell’s most recent album, Shine, was released in 2007. Since 2015, she has been dealing with the effects of a brain aneurysm, which forced her to relearn everything from walking and talking to playing guitar.