Gloria Gaynor - My Fight To Survive

The Disco Legend Opens Up For The First Time About The Back Injury That Nearly Paralyzed Her—And How She Finally Healed

- Nick Maslow

In 1978 Gloria Gaynor was making her mark on the disco world with hits like “Never Can Say Goodbye.” But while she was performing a concert at New York City’s Beacon Theatre in March of that year, disaster struck. The singer was in the middle of a choreographed routine with her backup dancers onstage when she tripped and fell backward over a stage monitor. True to form, she jumped up and finished the show—but “the next morning, I woke up paralyzed from the waist down,” she says. “I called my boyfriend and said, ‘Please come—I can’t move my legs.’”