Billy Joel says a rare brain disorder means he can no longer drive and must pause performing until more tests are done, while he auctions motorcycles he can barely ride.

The 77-year-old Piano Man told Page Six he is “not allowed to drive” after his normal pressure hydrocephalus diagnosis and the brain surgery that followed, and that doctors still have to decide whether he can return to the stage.

Joel also said he is putting more than 70 motorcycles up for auction. He built a collection that once topped a hundred bikes, but age and the condition have cut into the riding he loved.

Normal pressure hydrocephalus, sometimes called water on the brain, happens when cerebrospinal fluid builds up inside the skull and presses on the brain. That pressure can disrupt balance, memory, vision, and hearing, the Cleveland Clinic notes in material cited with the reporting.

Doctors compared every show to another concussion

Fox News reported that Joel’s neurologist framed live performance itself as a medical risk while recovery continues.

Joel put the warning in plain terms.

“What the neurologist told me, every time you do a show, it’s like you’re getting a concussion.”

He did not soft-pedal the physical load of a rock show either.

“Rock and roll is loud, man. Rock and roll made me deaf already. So 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.”

That medical caution sits behind the canceled dates and the open question hanging over any future tour. Celebrity health scares have a way of arriving without warning, as when Larry the Cable Guy recovered at home after an emergency hospitalization that pulled him off his usual grind.

Fall in Connecticut, diagnosis in May, shunt soon after

Joel’s public timeline tightened over months. He suffered a fall during a March performance at Mohegan Sun Casino in Montville, Connecticut, and several shows were postponed.

In May 2025 he announced the NPH diagnosis and canceled the remaining tour performances. He later disclosed that doctors implanted a shunt in his brain to help drain the excess fluid.

On SiriusXM’s The Billy Joel Channel he explained why he agreed to the operation and what changed afterward.

“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.”

He has said memory, balance, and overall function got better after the implant. He is continuing physical therapy and following doctors’ orders while more testing decides whether performing is safe again.

Serious procedures can leave even familiar public faces dealing with hard limits, much like the aftermath that left Farrah Abraham unable to speak after double-disc jaw surgery.

Motorcycles go on the block because riding got “iffy”

The same limits that shelved the tour hit Joel’s other passion. He loved the anonymity of biking and the work of customizing machines. He was a rider, he said, not a trophy collector.

That is why the bikes are leaving.

“I ended up having over a hundred motorcycles, and the truth is you can only ride one at a time. I’m into my 70s now, and I realized I can’t ride as much as I used to. I don’t want to die like a bug on a windshield. So I thought I’d put a lot of them on auction.”

He added that he loves motorcycles, driving, and “the customization of these bikes, the modifications, the messing around with things,” but decided “it was just time to let it go.”

When stars hit a wall with health, the honest inventory of what they can still do often matters more than the old image. Other entertainers have faced abrupt medical crises too, including the episode that left Carrot Top awake and improving after a serious hospitalization tied to court filings and extortion claims.

He tells fans he is not “deathly ill”

Earlier in the public discussion of the diagnosis, Joel worked to calm the people who worried he was finished. The New York Post carried his reassurance that the condition was frightening but not a death sentence, and that he had canceled 2025 concert dates while he focused on therapy and recovery.

“I know a lot of people are worried about me and my health, but I’m okay,” he told People in remarks carried in that coverage. He also said, “It was scary, but I’m okay... I just wanted to let people know, don’t worry about me being deathly ill or anything.”

He described balance trouble that felt like being on a boat and said the disorder can hit hearing, vision, and balance. He still called his overall health good even as the limits on driving and touring became clear.

In the newer interview he kept the same bottom line about staying present.

“I’m not going anywhere. I’m here. I’m still here.”

Family and associates have voiced support and hope for continued improvement while he works through physical therapy and the next round of medical tests. The open question is not whether Billy Joel wants to play again. He does. The question is what the next round of testing will allow a man who already gave decades of loud stages, late nights, and hard miles on two wheels.

Fans of classic American songwriters know the difference between denial and grit. Joel is choosing the harder path: naming the limits, taking the treatment, and refusing to pretend the body is still twenty-five.