Music legend Billy Joel has gotten candid about a pretty scary time in his life. As reported by Page Six, he underwent brain surgery after being diagnosed with a pretty scary condition.
In a segment of his radio show, The Billy Joel Channel, he opened up about his 2025 normal pressure hydrocephalus diagnosis. According to the Cleveland Clinic, the condition refers to where cerebrospinal fluid builds up in the skull, exerting pressure on the brain.
"I noticed that my balance was not good," Joel recalled of his time before receiving the diagnosis. "I had this sense of being on a boat, like this rocking motion - I wasn't steady on my feet."
Once he was diagnosed, things got a little simpler. Per the Clinic, the condition is treatable via surgery. And this is exactly what the music legend was told by a neurologist - to go under the knife to drain the fluid.
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The Music Legend Initially Didn't Want Surgery
"I said, 'Well, what does that [surgery] entail?'... I didn't want to do that," Joel admitted. "But then I read up on it, and I realized it can help improve your balance and can help your memory."
He further explained his reasons for going for the surgery: "You know, I don't want to lose my marbles. It's hard to tell what's age and what's a condition, so I agreed to do the shunt, and I had surgery, and they implanted a shunt in my brain, and it actually improved things."
And it wasn't just his memory and balance that was fixed. In his words, it entirely improved his "ability to function". Good for him!
However, the surgery also had a complication very specific to being a music legend like Billy Joel. Every show that he did following the surgery, he would get a "concussion" of sorts, because of his job - "playing rock and roll music very loud".
But, even now, Billy Joel is still following his doctors' advice. "I'm doing whatever it is they tell me to do because I don't want to lose it, y'know?", he explained.
But the music legend was confident in one thing: "I'm not going anywhere. I'm here - I'm still here."
