Billy Joel has told The Hollywood Reporter that he is not currently allowed to drive, and that his doctors still have to run more tests before they will say whether he can ever return to the stage. “I can’t drive right now. I’m not allowed to drive,” the 77-year-old told the magazine in an interview published Thursday.
It is the bluntest update Joel has given since he stopped touring last year, and it lands in a conversation that was supposed to be about something else: the sale of the motorcycles he spent decades riding around Long Island.
How we got here
Joel’s last full concert was in February 2025 at Mohegan Sun Arena in Uncasville, Connecticut. During that show he fell after spinning his microphone stand, a moment his daughter Alexa Ray Joel later said he played down and that she found upsetting to watch, as Ultimate Classic Rock recounted.
Soon afterward he postponed four months of dates for surgery and physical therapy for what was then described only as a medical condition. In May 2025 he canceled the rest of the tour and named the diagnosis: normal pressure hydrocephalus, a build-up of cerebrospinal fluid around the brain that can affect balance, memory, vision and hearing. A statement on his Instagram at the time said recent concerts had made the condition worse, according to ABC Audio.
Since then the updates have mostly been reassuring. In July 2025 he told Bill Maher that the “brain disorder” label sounded worse than he felt. In January 2026 he turned up to sing two songs with a tribute band in Florida. In March, Alexa Ray told The Hollywood Reporter he was doing physical therapy, had lost weight and was willing to perform again, though she had asked him to stay seated at the piano if he did. That same month he was expected at a Carnegie Hall tribute to his songs and did not appear.
Then in September, on his own SiriusXM channel, Joel described the surgery in detail for the first time. A surgeon placed a shunt in his brain to drain the excess fluid. He said he initially refused, then agreed after reading that it could help balance and memory, and that it “actually improved things,” NBC News reported. He also said that playing loud shows was “giving me something like a concussion every time I did a show,” and closed with a line fans repeated widely: “I’m here. I’m still here.”
What he said this week
The new interview adds two things. The first is the driving ban, a practical restriction that says more about where his recovery stands than any of the earlier, upbeat updates. The second is that the question of performing is still open, and not in his hands.
“I have to take a series of tests before I know,” Joel said, as quoted by RealityTea. He repeated his neurologist’s warning in starker terms than before: “What the neurologist told me, every time you do a show, it’s like you’re getting a concussion.” He pointed to the volume, the lighting, the stress and the energy of a crowd as the strain. “Rock and roll is loud, man,” he said.
He was clear about what he wants. “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.”
The accounts differ a little in tone. ABC Audio’s write-up has Joel calling the condition “not that serious” and crediting the shunt with better memory, balance and general functioning, while acknowledging the effect on his balance, memory, vision and hearing. Other outlets led on the restrictions. Both readings are consistent with what he said: a man who feels better than his diagnosis sounds, and who has still not been cleared to do the thing he is known for.
The motorcycles go to auction
The occasion for the interview is the sale of Joel’s motorcycle collection. More than 70 lots will be offered with no reserve by Gooding Christie’s at the first Rétromobile New York, held at the Javits Center on November 20 and 21, according to Motorcycles.News. The bikes include a 1978 Triumph Bonneville given to him to mark his 150th sold-out show at Madison Square Garden, a 1982 Ducati 900 Mike Hailwood Replica and a restored 1975 Ducati 750 Sport. Proceeds go to the Joel Foundation, which supports music education, health and humanitarian causes.
Many of the machines spent years on display at 20th Century Cycles, his workshop and showroom in Oyster Bay, which closed at the end of September 2025, a few months after his diagnosis. Joel told the magazine he was always a rider rather than a collector, and that the collection simply grew past the point where he could ride it all. With driving off the table for now, the timing makes its own point.
What happens next
There is no tour, no announced date and no timeline for the tests. Joel’s position, in his own words, is that he would like to perform again and that his doctors will decide. Until they do, the most concrete Billy Joel event on the calendar is a motorcycle auction in Manhattan next month, and fans will be watching for whatever he says when the results come back.
