LOS ANGELES — When the speaker read out “And Joni Mitchell, Canada,” the room cheered. Mitchell, 82, sat in the front row in a red beret and an American flag pin, and left the ceremony a citizen of the country she has lived in since 1965.
She announced it Tuesday on Instagram with a photo of herself holding a flag and a clip from the ceremony. “A journey that began 62 years ago,” the caption read. Neither the clip nor the coverage that followed says where the ceremony took place.
What makes it more than a milestone is what she has said about the country while a foreigner in it. At the 2024 Hollywood Bowl she made an expletive-laced remark about Donald Trump, NBC News reported, and urged the crowd to vote, saying she wished she could because she was Canadian, according to Fox News. She now has the right to.
Mitchell moved to the United States in 1965 with her then-husband, the folk singer Chuck Mitchell, and lived in Detroit and New York before settling in Laurel Canyon, NBC News reported. Her protest songs run through the decades: “The Fiddle and the Drum” in 1969 over Vietnam, “Tax Free” in the 1980s over religious tax exemptions.
Her recent public remarks have been more pointed. Accepting a lifetime achievement award at the Juno Awards in March, she praised Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and said: “I’m living in the states, and you know what’s happening there.” At the 2026 Grammys she wore an “ICE OUT” pin while accepting the Best Historical Album award, Fox News reported. Fox also noted that White House spokesperson Davis Ingle told The Independent: “Who the hell is Joni Mitchell?”
The timing sits oddly beside the news around it. Her naturalization comes as Trump’s Justice Department files record denaturalization cases and, this week, presses California over noncitizens on its voter rolls.
Fox reported that she keeps her Canadian citizenship, since both countries allow dual nationality. CTV News noted that she still owns property in British Columbia. She has not said why she chose now, and her caption says only that the journey began 62 years ago.
