Billy Joel has been pretty open about the “brain disorder” he was diagnosed with in 2025 that forced him to cancel all of his upcoming performances, while also being at pains to reassure fans that his condition isn’t quite as scary as its label sounds.
It doesn’t seem like there’s any guarantee that he’s ever going to fully recover from it, though, or that he’ll be able to resume playing shows in the way that he used to.
In a new interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Joel confirmed that he’s still living with the condition, known as hydrocephalus. “It used to be called water on the brain, so it affects your balance, it affects your memory, it affects your vision, your hearing,” he said. “But I’m OK. They call it a brain disorder, but it’s not that serious. It’s just something that affects your balance mostly.”
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Asked if he’s ever going to be able to tour again, Joel added: “I don’t know. 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 further explained that it’s not just the volume of playing a rock ‘n’ roll show that’s the problem: “It’s the lighting, the sound, the stress of the show, the audience, the energy of the performance. There’s a lot going on when you’re onstage. And they said, ‘Well, you really shouldn’t be doing that right now.’ So they have to test me further to see if I can go back and do performing again, which I would like to be able to do.”
Joel was speaking as he prepares to auction off 70 of his motorcycles at Christie’s. Asked whether he’d ever had an accident while riding one, he said that he had, back in 1982.
Discussing the injuries it caused, he said: “I still have no bone in my left thumb. And my right arm, the wrist got pulled out of its socket on my right hand, and my left hand got smashed and my leg got broken.”
Sounds rough – so did that mean that the Piano Man had to relearn how to play the piano. “No,” says Joel, before quipping: “I was never that good to begin with.”
