Twisted Sister singer Dee Snider has described a series of medical issues that led him to step away from plans to appear on the band’s 50th-anniversary reunion dates in 2026, saying doctors warned him his body could no longer withstand the physical demands of his stage show.
Speaking on the “Beardo & Weirdo” podcast, Snider said he was told he needed a hip replacement and later learned he had hypertension and an undiagnosed heart issue as he recalled a doctor telling him:
“Dude, you’re great… for a 71-year-old. But you can’t do that anymore. You’re done.”
“First of all, becoming face-to-face with mortality. And as the doctor said to me, ‘Dude, you’re great, amazing for a 71-year-old. But you can’t do that anymore. You’re done. Your body parts are worn out, and you got nothing left.’ And the funniest thing [was] when the surgeon looked at my X-ray, [he said], ‘Do you jump around much?’ ‘Yeah. That’s kind of what I do.’ He goes, ‘Yeah, well, you’re done.’ And so that was the first one. And then when I was going to get a hip replacement and hoping that that would be enough to change things on that level and I could still keep playing, then I was told that I had hypertension and heart issues that — day-to-day living and handling and dealing with it… My dad’s 95, and I’ll be going for a long time, but if I’m gonna go up there and burn rubber on stage and just use it up, so to speak, I had to decide whether or not to stop that.
Snider also said his family urged him to stop, with his children questioning why he wanted to push through when it was not a financial necessity. He added that he initially believed surgery could keep him stage-ready after a conversation with Iron Maiden singer Bruce Dickinson about hip replacements, but a test run onstage later aggravated a knee injury and reinforced the medical warning.
He added: “And my family literally had to sit down with me and pretty much begged me to stop. And basically, my kids, they’re, like, ‘Why are you doing this? What do you got to prove? It’s not a financial thing for you. You’ve got everything that you ever dreamed of, everything you wanted. It’s pure ego.'”
His exit follows earlier Alternative Nation reporting that Snider pushed back on rumours about the severity of his condition, stressing he is not “dying” but has chosen to preserve his health rather than “burn rubber on stage” trying to prove he can still perform at his previous level.
Former Skid Row singer Sebastian Bach has been selected to front Twisted Sister for several fall 2026 shows, with Snider publicly approving the decision and saying Bach is a genuine fan who will honour the material. The band has not yet announced a full itinerary beyond early confirmed dates.
