Billy Joel says he feels ‘good' after being diagnosed with brain condition
The statement shared on Joel's Instagram account in May also revealed that the condition appeared to have been exacerbated by recent performances, leading to problems with hearing, vision and balance.
Speaking to Bill Maher on his Club Random Podcast, the Piano Man singer shared an update on his health, saying that he was feeling 'good'.
He said: 'It's not fixed, it's still being worked on.
'I feel fine, my balance sucks. It's like being on a boat.'
According to the NHS website, NPH is an uncommon and poorly understood condition that often affects people over the age of 60 and can be difficult to diagnose as its symptoms include mobility problems and dementia, which are associated with more common conditions such as Alzheimer's disease.
He told Maher that he does not know what caused the condition and that, despite not drinking anymore, he thought it might have been caused by that.
'They keep referring to what I have as a brain disorder, so it sounds a lot worse than what I am feeling,' he added.
The New York-born singer is best known for songs including Uptown Girl, Tell Her About It and An Innocent Man and has achieved five UK top 10 singles and eight UK top 10 albums.
Since beginning his career in the mid-1960s, Joel has won five Grammy Awards and been nominated for 23, and was inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame by one of his heroes, Ray Charles, in 1999.
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The Guardian
44 minutes ago
- The Guardian
‘It's queer, Black joy': the TikTok creator quizzing pop stars and politicians on LGBTQ+ culture
Anania Williams is genreless. Some may know them from their comedic TikTok videos, which regularly amass hundreds of thousands of views. Others may recognize them as host of Gaydar, a viral entertainment-education show about queer culture, history and current events; an interview Williams did with the New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani did go viral, after all. There's also Williams's drag performances, including those where they opened for icons such as Chappell Roan and Bob the Drag Queen. Or their bevy of musical theater roles – Lola in Kinky Boots, Dominique in Lucky Stiffs, to name a few. For years, Williams has been launching their own creative universe. As a 25-year-old genderqueer, Black artist, Williams, who uses they/she pronouns, has used their ever-growing social media presence (more than 2.8 million followers across their social media platforms) to fashion the career of their dreams outside anyone's binaries. 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At school, Williams was bullied for 'having a girl name', they said. Their home life was equally tumultuous, Williams recalled, rife with abuse and neglect. But life in the midwest sowed the seeds for their future artistic passions. As a child, they sang in the church choir, later joining show choir, following in the footsteps of an older sister. For college, Williams attended Emerson College's in the musical theatre program in Boston. University was one of the first times that Williams got to reflect on who they were, what they wanted. But musical theater came with its own binaries and limitations, especially as Williams is both genderqueer, meaning outside the typical binaries of gender, and Black. 'It felt like: 'Lord forbid you be somewhere else on the gender binary,' and then, 'Lord forbid you're also Black at the same time',' Williams said. Even when Williams attempted to create their own lane, they said they faced resistance from their professors. 'There was a teacher that was like: 'You keep bringing in girl songs. Why is that?' And I tried to explain it to them, and it didn't go well,' Williams said. When the Covid-19 pandemic hit, Williams returned to their home town to wait out the return to normalcy like most people. The isolation allowed for reflection and served as a moment that allowed them to fully realize their gender identity. 'I had to admit a couple things to myself, like, 'Yeah, I'm queer. Yeah, I'm probably genderqueer.' And from there, it kind of spiraled,' they said of that time period, jokingly adding: 'I call it the pronoun pipeline.' Around the same time, Williams started to create content on TikTok, quickly becoming known for short, comedic rants captured during their late-night walks. Most of their content was spur-of-the-moment musings on anything from Christianity and relationships to a new iPhone. In 2022, they started to speak more openly about being genderqueer, posting videos of their drag and makeup routine. Reflecting back on that time period brings a mix of feelings, Williams said. On one hand, it has been extremely gratifying to grow alongside longtime viewers. 'The audience that's been with me the longest has signed on to watch me evolve,' they said. '[They] watched me do makeup for the first time or try to glue down a wig. Those people are why I feel like I can keep going.' On the other hand, Williams sometimes wishes 'the first version people knew me of was who I am today'. The nature of their content has continued to grow. In 2024, Williams became the host of Gaydar, created by Amelia Montooth at the company Mutuals Media. The show quizzes an array of guests on queer culture in an attempt to find out if they are 'straight, gay or homophobic'. Questions include anything from what a 'lipstick lesbian' is to assessing a guest's knowledge of a gay icon. 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Daily Mail
an hour ago
- Daily Mail
Lady Victoria Starmer looks effortlessly chic in bright orange sundress as she heads to Ascot without the prime minister
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The Guardian
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If this all seems like a lot, somehow both cartoonishly blunt and muddled, hedonism strangely crossed with sanctity – well, that's Kesha, a millennial-beloved artist always on the messy bleeding edge of culture, for better and for worse. Once the 22-year-old from Nashville who rolled in on her gold Trans-Am and glittered-bombed the early 2010s with a ridiculous string of feral, slangy hits, then a cautionary tale stalled by a nearly decade-long legal dispute with her former producer, the artist born Kesha Rose Sebert has finally stepped into her role as a generational symbol on her own terms, much to the delight of a loyal crowd at the Garden, who hollered at every mention of the word freedom – and there were many – like it was a revelation. And it was – for years, Kesha represented not only the bombast, disillusionment and debauchery of youth fucked over by the 2008 financial crash, with attitude so fierce and undeniable it could make diabolical lyrics such as 'don't be a little bitch with your chit chat / just show me where your dick's at' winsome, but also the dark side of the predacious music industry. In 2014, she sued to be released from her contract with producer Łukasz 'Dr Luke' Gottwald, who convinced her to move to Los Angeles at 17, for alleged drugging, sexual assault and emotional manipulation; a protracted legal battle forced her to continue working for him, her music still released under his imprint if not with his input, until last year. . (pronounced Period), her album released this month, is her first output truly independent of Dr Luke. So you can't begrudge Kesha some pointed and grandiose words on liberation, nor for remixing the production of some of her most recognizable hits – Blow, Die Young, Timber – into something a little smoother, more mature, more her. 'I've had these songs taken from me and I want you to help me take them back tonight,' she proclaims during Act I of four murkily defined sections, before she laps the floor to a medley of tracks from Animal and Warrior in a shocking reminder of just how deep her cuts go. The choreography may be pop standard (sharp and suggestive but cold-blooded), the backing track sustaining the more vigorous dance numbers, the more conceptual moments (a straitjacket, dancers in kitty-cat mascot suits) a little too belabored, but it doesn't matter. As a statement of legacy – her Auto-tuned recklessness a clear antecedent of today's Brat-green pop landscape – and as an act of reclamation, the Tits Out tour is a triumph. It's also extremely fun, Kesha's grip on the pulse of a hot banger as tight as her stage banter is loose and breezy. As with her recession pop peer Lady Gaga's Mayhem Ball, the new dance tracks flow seamlessly with the old. Red Flag, a punchy ode to being magnetized for all the wrong reasons, bends smoothly into the cheerleader taunt of Dinosaur. ('D-I-N-O-S-A, U-R a dinosaur!' remains one of Kesha's most deranged and stupidly catchy lyrics). Period's Delusional morphs so easily into the girl-on-girl punches of Backstabber that I thought it was one song. New track Attention! finds Kesha in the pocket of the mode she pioneered – taunting, headstrong, teetering on obnoxious – straight into a sick repetition of 'I'm a bitch!' with a 2010s bass so sticky it basically spells out LMFAO. No one could be still. Except, briefly, Kesha herself, when she paused on multiple occasions to celebrate her freedom with kiss-offs ('hey, look how much money you made off of me!') that would feel overdone if they weren't so hard-earned. At one point, when she mentioned being in 'year eight of litigation' ahead of the self-love track The One., I gasped – her onstage persona is so buoyant, it's easy to forget just how long she endured. She drove the point into the stratosphere with a victorious encore; a note-perfect performance of Praying, her typically on-the-nose #MeToo ballad fantasizing a perpetrator's recognition, her voice honeyed and soaring, led to a five-plus-minute standing ovation. She let her tears flow; I shed a tear too, for a moment more raw than anything I've seen at a pop show in recent memory. 'This love is not only for me, it's for anyone who survived something they never should've had to survive,' she said. And then it's back to business, with early tracks Your Love Is My Drug and We R Who We R, and one final, perfect, very Kesha farewell: 'Have a good night!' she said with that cheeky giggle. 'And I hope … you all … get laid.'
