Joan Baez Reveals How She Found ‘Total Forgiveness’ for Bob Dylan Years After Breakup (Exclusive)

Joan Baez has finally found “complete forgiveness” with Bob Dylan.

In an exclusive interview with PEOPLE, the “Farewell, Angelina” singer, 82, reflects on her relationship with Dylan, 82, which is also the subject of her new documentary Joan Baez: I am the noisee (in limited edition on October 6).

After breaking out of the relationship in 1960, Baez began working with and dating the then-unknown Dylan. Despite their productive creative partnership, the relationship ended on record when he suddenly broke her heart in 1965. Their love affair inspired one of Baez’s biggest hits with 1975’s “Diamonds & Rust.”

Watch Joan Baez Get Candid in Trailer for New Documentary ‘I Am a Noise’

“We were in our early 20s,” says Baez, who calls the relationship in the film “totally demoralizing.” “We were stupid and you can’t blame someone forever. I certainly tried, but eventually I stopped.”

She later found “complete forgiveness” for Dylan after painting a portrait of him in his youth: “I played his music and I just burst into tears. When I finished painting, I had no more enmities. No. It stayed like that.”

According to Baez, the pair never reconnected over the years.

Dylan’s rep has not yet responded to PEOPLE’s request for comment.

I am the noisedirected by Karen O’Connor, Miri Navasky and Maeve O’Boyle, is a hauntingly candid portrait of the folk legend detailing her career as an artist and activist, while delving into her relationships, family and trauma, as she wraps up her final tour of 2019.

Joan Baez in the Hamptons in August 2023.

Sonia Moskowitz/Getty

While speaking with PEOPLE, Baez also opened up about the struggles she’s been facing at home. In the film, he reveals memories of early family abuse. “It was a dark childhood,” Baez says. “Some deep, traumatic things happened.”

Baez also revealed that she began experiencing panic attacks at a young age and often faced racist remarks at school because of her Latino background. “‘Skinny, stupid Mexican’ is really how I saw myself,” she says.

“I think that’s the clearest thing that can be in a movie. As you move through the film, this is repeated over and over again; to live like that was from panic to panic,” she says about how it affected her mental health.

Her mother was trying to figure out what was bothering her growing up.

“My mom said at one point: “There’s something in there. We don’t know what it is. I thought she was a happy child, but something is bothering her. I don’t know if she knows what that is,’” Baez recalls.

Joan Baez and her sister Pauline in 1943.

Joan Baez/Instagram

Later, her panic attacks were exacerbated by public appearances, but she still wasn’t sure what caused them.

Baez officially retired from touring in 2019, but made an exception in May for Acoustic-4-A-Cure in San Francisco in 2023, organized by Sammy Hagar and Bob Weir.

Joan Baez Marches: Music icon continues her fight for social justice

While a tour may not be on the table, is new music?

“I don’t know,” she tells PEOPLE. “It seems a little late in the game.”

Part of her insecurity has to do with Baez recently revealing that her voice has changed.

“In order to sing anything, I have to let go of the old and all the thoughts I had in order to really revitalize it,” she says of her voice. “There’s some of that left that’s transitioning into this new era in the lower range, which is kind of fun for me. It’s a challenge.”

Joan Baez performs in Central Park in New York.

Leif Skoogfors/CORBIS/Corbis via Getty

Otherwise, Baez is enjoying retirement, enjoying time with her son Gabriel Harris (with ex-husband David Harris) and granddaughter Jasmine, and drawing and writing poetry.

“The word ‘retirement’ didn’t mean anything to me,” she says, “but it unleashed this creative energy that just exploded.”

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Source: HIS Education