The man who sold out Madison Square Garden more times than anyone alive can no longer get behind the wheel of a car, let alone walk onto a stage.
Billy Joel, 77, said in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter published Thursday, Oct. 15, 2026, that doctors have barred him from driving and from performing while he recovers from a rare brain disorder diagnosed in 2025. The Grammy winner told the magazine his return to the stage depends on “a series of tests.”
“I have to take a series of tests before I know, but I can’t drive right now. I’m not allowed to drive. And I can’t do performances because what the neurologist told me, every time you do a show, it’s like you’re getting a concussion,” Joel said.
The Lights, the Crowd, the Brain
Joel said his health is good and that the disorder mostly affects his balance. He has already lost some hearing to decades of loud rock music.
The lighting, the sound, the stress of a concert and the energy of a crowd add up to more than his brain should handle right now, Joel said, and his doctors have told him he should not be doing it. He wants to be cleared to perform again.
Joel fell during a performance at Mohegan Sun Casino in Montville, Conn., on Feb. 22, 2025, before the diagnosis. He postponed four months of tour dates as a first step. In May 2025 he announced the diagnosis — normal pressure hydrocephalus, or NPH — and canceled all upcoming shows.
His Instagram statement at the time said recent concerts had worsened the condition and that he was having trouble with his hearing, vision and balance. He was undergoing specific physical therapy on his doctor’s instructions, the statement said, and had been advised not to perform while he recovered.
A Rocking Sensation, Like a Boat
Surgeons implanted a shunt in Joel’s brain, a small tube that reroutes extra fluid away. With NPH, cerebrospinal fluid builds up inside the skull, presses on the brain and disrupts how a person thinks. The condition, once called water on the brain, affects balance, memory, vision and hearing.
Joel said on SiriusXM’s “The Billy Joel Channel” on Sept. 9 that the surgery worked, that his memory had improved, his balance had improved a little and he was functioning better. The symptoms that sent him to a neurologist, he said in the same appearance, included a rocking sensation, as if he were standing on a boat.
On Bill Maher’s podcast “Club Random” in 2025, Joel said the condition was not fixed and was still being worked on, though he felt good at the time. He continues physical therapy and is following his doctors’ instructions closely. “I’m not going anywhere,” he said of his recovery.
“Only Ride One at a Time”
Joel is sending more than 70 bikes from his personal collection to a Gooding Christie’s auction on Nov. 20 and 21, with proceeds going to the Joel Foundation. The bikes will be put on display at the Javits Center in New York, and the collection includes Ducati, BMW, Moto Guzzi, Harley-Davidson, Yamaha, Triumph, Honda and Kawasaki machines.
David Gooding, founder of Gooding Christie’s, told Fox News Digital that one star of the November sale is a 1978 Triumph T140 Bonneville that Madison Square Garden gave Joel to mark 150 sold-out shows. Its tank is painted with a keyboard, and the bike carries an estimate of $10,000 to $15,000.
“He still holds the record for the most sold out show of anyone ever at Madison Square Garden,” Gooding said.
Joel said he is into his 70s now and cannot ride as much as he once did, and that the diagnosis has made getting behind the wheel dicey — his reason for handing the bikes to someone else. He ended up having over a hundred motorcycles, he said, and the truth is you can only ride one at a time.
He was never a collector, he said, but a rider who loved the anonymity and loved tinkering with the customizing and the modifications. “I don’t want to die like a bug on a windshield,” he said.
