Mick Jagger's 2019 Heart Valve Surgery and the Stones' Postponed Tour

Mick Jagger’s March 2019 heart valve replacement surgery was prompted by a narrowing of his aortic valve—aortic stenosis. The condition forces the heart to work harder to push blood through, and Jagger, then 75, was experiencing symptoms that made surgery unavoidable. He underwent a minimally invasive transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) in New York, replacing the faulty valve without opening his chest.

The Rolling Stones had a North American “No Filter” tour scheduled to begin in April 2019. Jagger’s recovery forced a postponement of all dates, but the band quickly rescheduled them for June and July of the same year. By July, Jagger was back onstage in Chicago, and the tour rolled on without further interruptions—remarkable for a man who’d just had open-heart work done four months earlier.