Billy Joel reveals he had brain surgery because he didn’t want to lose his ‘marbles’

Long Island troubadour Billy Joel revealed Tuesday that he underwent brain surgery because he didn’t want to lose his “marbles.”

Speaking on his SiriusXM channel, the 77-year-old “Piano Man” singer admitted he initially balked at going under the knife for hydrocephalus, a disorder he was diagnosed with in 2025.

“I said, ‘Well, what does that entail?’” he said he asked the doctor.

After being told that it involved having a surgeon “drill a hole through your skull” and “stick a shunt inside your brain,” Joel said “I didn’t want to do that.”

“But then I read up on it, and I realized it can help improve your balance and can help your memory,” he said. “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.”

Joel did not say exactly when he had the surgery. But he was diagnosed in May 2025 with normal pressure hydrocephalus, which is a condition in which cerebrospinal fluid builds up inside the skull and presses on the brain, according to the…

Original source: https://www.nbcnews.com/business