At 81, Rod Stewart Is Saying Goodbye After His Wife's Tragic Diagnosis

At 81, Rod Stewart Is Saying Goodbye After His Wife's Tragic Diagnosis For most of his life, Rod Stewart treated the idea of slowing down like a suggestion meant for somebody else. He survived broken marriages, prostate cancer, decades of touring and a lifestyle that would have exhausted men half his age. Even after turning 80, Rod was still running across stages, changing costumes and singing for nearly two hours at a time. Then one night in Utah, his body stopped cooperating. Rod became so breathless that he needed oxygen. He later admitted he had nearly fainted. Doctors looked closer and discovered a heart problem neither he nor Penny Lancaster knew was there. A coronary blockage. A stent. Canceled concerts. And then, on September 28, 2026, Rod finally said the words fans had spent decades believing he would never say. The road was ending. His 2027 Final Encore Tour would be his last major rock-and-roll tour. And for Penny, the woman who had once needed Rod to recognize that something was terribly wrong with her own health, the roles had suddenly reversed.