For most of 2026, Rod Stewart’s health has been a story told by other people. He needed oxygen onstage in June, and in August a heart procedure forced him to cancel the rest of his tour. Since then, fans have mostly followed his recovery through statements from his team and the interviews his wife has given on his behalf.
Last Thursday night in London, the 81-year-old finally answered the question himself. His reply was short and loud, and it came with a detail about his fitness that few people would expect from a man only two months past a heart procedure.
What Happened To Rod Stewart’s Heart This Summer?
The trouble started during the spring leg of his “One Last Time” tour, when Stewart canceled and postponed shows in Nevada and California in May and June. At first, he told fans he was on vocal rest with a sinus infection. Later he said a respiratory infection had turned into laryngitis.
Then came the scare in Salt Lake City. In June he paused a concert there after nearly fainting, and he used an oxygen mask before he went on to finish the show. Do You Remember covered that onstage health scare at the time.
Summer brought another surprise. On August 9, his concert at Riverbend Music Center in Cincinnati was postponed at the last minute, and fans were told only that he needed “an unforeseen but minor medical procedure that required prompt attention.” Two days later, a show in Cleveland was canceled too.
The full picture arrived on August 11 in a statement on his official Instagram. “Following further medical evaluation, Sir Rod Stewart has successfully undergone a routine coronary stent procedure,” it read, according to Gold Radio. “Doctors are pleased with his recovery, and Rod is doing very well and has returned to his normal daily activities.”
His doctors wanted him to take four weeks off to regain full fitness, and that meant canceling the rest of his 2026 dates, including a six-night run at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas. In his own message, Stewart said he was “very much on the mend” and thanked the doctors and nurses who had cared for him. What none of these statements explained was how the problem had been found in the first place.
What Did Penny Lancaster Reveal About The Blockage?
That answer came from his wife. Penny Lancaster, 55, talked about the procedure in September on At Home with Vanessa, the online series hosted by Vanessa Feltz.
She described a run of bad luck. Stewart had “a couple of instances where he had an upper respiratory infection,” she said, and then he played a venue with “very high altitude, so it would affect anybody.” While looking into all of that, doctors found an underlying heart issue the couple never knew he had. According to People, Lancaster said doctors “detected a slight blockage which needed a stent.” She told the Mirror that the timing meant it was caught “at the right time in the right place.”
She also made it clear that the family is keeping a close eye on him, and she sounded like a wife who means it. “Between me and my brother, his trainer, and doctors and everyone, we’re not letting him get away with it,” she said, per People. “He has to do as he’s told.”
This is not the first time Stewart has come through a health scare. In September 2019, he told a charity fundraiser in Surrey that he had been treated for prostate cancer in secret and had been given the all-clear. Lancaster mentioned both illnesses in her interview, telling the Mirror, “My husband’s had both.” A recovery like this one naturally raised a bigger question about how much longer he would stay on the road.
Is This Really Rod Stewart’s Last Tour?
Stewart answered it himself on September 28, sitting down at a piano to record a video for Instagram. “I have to announce next year will be my last tour ever, ever, ever,” he said, as People reported. Then he added, “I’m not retiring, but this will be the last rock and roll tour.” DYR covered the announcement of The Final Encore the next day.
The 2027 tour will take him across the United States, Canada, Ireland, the United Kingdom and mainland Europe. “After more than six decades, The Final Encore will most definitely be my last,” Stewart said in a statement quoted by the Mirror and HELLO!. Lancaster, though, has hinted that the singing will not stop there. She said he will tour until 2028 and then turn his attention to the Great American Songbook.
Those old standards have rescued him once before. In 2004, Stardust: The Great American Songbook 3 became his first number one album in the United States in 25 years.
It is a long way from where he began. Born in London on January 10, 1945, Stewart joined the Jeff Beck Group in 1967 and Faces in 1969, and his solo single “Maggie May” became a hit in 1971. If you were dancing in 1978, “Da Ya Think I’m Sexy?” was probably on the turntable. He entered the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a solo artist in 1994 and again with Faces in 2012, and in 2016 he was knighted for services to music and charity.
At home, Stewart is the father of eight children. The two youngest, Alastair and Aiden, are his sons with Lancaster, whom he married in 2007, and she was right beside him last Thursday when he finally gave his own update.
How Does Rod Stewart Say He Feels Now?
The setting was a night out for a good cause. On October 15, Stewart and Lancaster attended a charity gala performance of Sinatra the Musical at the Aldwych Theatre in London’s West End, raising money for the music therapy charity Nordoff and Robbins.
When a reporter asked how he was feeling, Stewart shot back with a four-letter word followed by “brilliant!” Then he added, “I swam 400 metres the other day.” The Daily Mail first reported the exchange, and People, HELLO! and the Mirror all picked it up. That is about a quarter of a mile, or 16 lengths of a standard 25-metre pool, which is not bad for a man who had a stent put in this summer.
He was there partly out of loyalty to an old friend’s family. “His daughters are godmothers to two of my children, so we have a close family, but he always offered good advice,” Stewart said of Frank Sinatra, according to HELLO!. And when photographers caught him leaving the theatre, the man whose wife insists he “has to do as he’s told” was holding a box of Maltesers.
