Iconic rocker Roger Daltrey, the legendary voice of The Who, has revealed that he is losing both his hearing and sight after celebrating his 81st birthday on March 1.
"The joys of getting old mean you go deaf. I also now have got the joy of going blind," Daltrey told the crowd at London's Royal Albert Hall during a concert on Thursday, according to Sky News.
"Fortunately, I still have my voice because then I'll have a full Tommy," the singer added, referencing the main character from The Who's 1969 album-turned-rock opera who is not only deaf and blind but also mute.
This wasn't the first instance in which Daltrey has shared that he is becoming "very, very deaf," attributing his hearing loss to the toll taken by his over six-decade-long career as a rock and roll vocalist.
"Take your [expletive] earplugs with you to the gigs," he told the crowd during another concert in Las Vegas in 2018, according to TMZ.
In more recent interviews, including a January 2024 conversation with The Times, Daltrey has addressed topics such as aging and mortality.
"My dreams came true so, listen, I'm ready to go at any time. My family are all great and all taken care of," he told the outlet at the time.
"You've got to be realistic," he continued. "You can't live your life forever. Like I said, people my age, we're in the way. There are no guitar strings to be changed on this old instrument."
The health update comes after Daltrey and fellow bandmate Pete Townshend hinted that The Who could be approaching retirement, nearly six decades after the band's formation in 1964.
"I suppose Roger and I, at some point, will look ahead and try to work out whether or not we want to do an Elton John and end it in some way," Townshend said in 2023 while referencing Elton John's farewell tour.
"It's difficult to make a decision going forward, to say we're going to do this or that, because we don't know how well we're going to be or how fit we're going to be," he continued, saying that they were now getting "old."
"That in itself has a downside because, apart from what you can or can't do on the stage, when you finish touring, you come back to normal life," he said. "Whatever it is that you decide to do to fill your time away from the road – and it's harder and takes longer."
Zoe Papadakis ✉
Zoe Papadakis is a Newsmax writer based in South Africa with two decades of experience specializing in media and entertainment. She has been in the news industry as a reporter, writer and editor for newspapers, magazine and websites.
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