EXCLUSIVE: Eric Clapton Secretly Confined To Wheelchair As Pals Fear Prescription Medication Could Drag Him Back To Dark Days Of Addiction
Eric Clapton is now secretly crippled.
June 9 2025, Published 10:00 a.m. ET
Ailing Eric Clapton is feared to be rapping on heaven’s door.
The Tears in Heaven bluesman has lost his agonizing war with a crippling nerve disease suspected to have been caused by his years of boozing – and is now almost permanently confined to a wheelchair, RadarOnline.com can reveal.
We can also reveal the rocker’s pals fear the medication usually prescribed for his debilitating condition could drag the reformed junkie and alcoholic back into the pit of addiction that almost killed him in his pomp.
Hidden Battle
He can barely stand for gigs.
Even though the Layla rocker is still managing to make it through performances mainly on his feet, as soon as he leaves the stage he is trapped in a wheelchair as his searing pain makes standing a living hell.
The 80-year-old has been reduced to tour the world in a handicapped-accessible van – just like the one in which disabled stargazer Stephen Hawking travelled.
A source said: "Like always, Eric is putting a brave face on his pain and bottling up his emotions.
"But the truth is, he is in agony and feels heartbroken he has to be wheeled around by assistants in a wheelchair.
"He's doing his best to stand as much as he can during the few shows he's still able to do and in his social media posts, as he knows his fans like to see him that way – but it's very sad to see he needs a stool at times.
"When he's off stage it’s a different story. He looks embarrassed and shattered in his wheelchair and often pulls a hoodie over his face in case anyone sees him being transported in the wheelchair-accessible van he uses."
The rocker's condition is a world away from his hey day.
Clapton shocked fans in 2017 when he was photographed looking deathly ill in a wheelchair.
He said at the time he was suffering from "severe bronchitis."
It’s now believed he was rendered disabled by a disease known as peripheral neuropathy.
The illness makes patients feel as if their nerves are exposed to the world, with the slightest touch leaving sufferers in agony.
Clapton admitted in 2016 the illness was making it hard for him to play guitar, adding: "You feel like you have electric shocks going down your leg."
Diabetes is the leading cause – but it can be brought on by physical injury, chemotherapy or alcoholism.
A source said: "Peripheral neuropathy is agony and comes with heavy prescription medications.
"But with Eric's addictive personality, there’s a real worry putting him on courses of tablets will send him on a disastrous spiral back to his worst excesses."
Life Of Excess
Pals say Clapton's years of wild partying has finally got the better of the bluesman.
Clapton's booze and drug addictions were once so severe he was spending $16,000 a week on heroin and downing a bottle of brandy before lunchtime – confessing he wanted to drink himself to death.
He cancelled concerts due to back pain in 2013 and later said he was thinking of retiring from the stage.
Married dad-of-four Clapton is no stranger to physical – and emotional – agony.
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He was left devastated by the death of his son.
His four-year-old love child Connor notoriously plummeted to his death from a New York high-rise in 1991.
And while recording his twentieth solo album I Still Do in 2016 his hands were stricken with a brutal bout of skin condition eczema.
The twice-divorced star is married to Melia McEnery, who at 49 is 31 years his junior.
He has endured decades of estrangement from his now 40-year-old online influencer lovechild Ruth, fathered after Clapton’s affair with recording studio manager Yvonne Kelly while married to then-wife Pattie Boyd, who he "stole" from the late Beatles icon George Harrison.
The guitarist – dubbed 'Slowhand' due to his habit of keeping audiences waiting while he changed snapped guitar strings during stageshows – has said: "By rights, I should have kicked the bucket a long time ago."
