Billy Joel Gives Health Update After Brain Surgery: ‘I’m OK — It Sounds a Lot Worse Than It Actually Is’

Billy Joel gave a health update during a call-in with fans on his SiriusXM channel this week, noting that he’s doing well after revealing earlier in September that he’d undergone brain surgery to relieve some of the symptoms of normal pressure hydrocephalus, a disorder he was diagnosed with in 2025.

“I know people are worried about me because they read that I have a brain disorder, which sounds a lot worse than it actually is,” he told callers. “I’m okay. My balance isn’t that good. Lost a little bit of my hearing, but that may have to do with my age, too, and the rock and roll life and the loud volume probably didn’t help. But I’m fine. I want people to not have to worry about me. I’m okay. And I appreciate your call.”

The caller had originally asked about the inspiration for Joel’s 1973 song “Captain Jack,” which is clearly about a drug dealer. “I was living in Oyster Bay, Long Island, across from a public housing area,” Joel recalled. “And I was watching kids from the suburbs scoring drugs from this place. And it seemed odd to me that kids from the suburbs were doing that. It was just kind of a foreign thing to me. I call it a look out the window song. I was just basically in my own apartment looking out the window seeing people coming and going from this drug dealer. It was across the street. And I had his idea for a bassline, it’s a little bit symphonic of a theme and I always wanted to do something with that and the subject of the song seemed to fit with that particular team and that’s how it got written.”

The 77-year-old musician revealed in May 2025 that he had been diagnosed with normal pressure hydrocephalus, in which cerebrospinal fluid builds up inside the skull and presses on the brain. He canceled several concerts and said he had been told not to perform until he recovered.

Though he returned in January of this year to perform two songs with a tribute band, he said on Sirius that in general his doctors have asked him not to undergo too much stress.