Chubby Checker Skipping Rock Hall Induction Ceremony to Play a Gig Instead

Chubby Checker has decided against attending the 2025 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony, where he’ll be enshrined as part of a class that also includes The White Stripes, Soundgarden, OutKast, and Cyndi Lauper. Instead, the 85-year-old musician will spend the night of the ceremony “doing what I love doing the most”: out on the road, playing a gig.

As Checker explained in a recent interview with Future Rock Legends, he declined the invitation to attend his Rock Hall induction after apparently being informed he would not be allowed to perform live during the ceremony.

“As you come to be an older person, you run into things that you didn’t run into when you were not an older person. So I told my manager, I says, ‘Make sure when we go to the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame, the induction, that I’m doing what I love doing the most: being in front of an audience. A live audience, not a television audience… So she did, she got me a show.”

Part of Check’s thinking, as he explained, was to dispute the notion that some people may have that, “He’s an old guy. He’s probably retired. He’s not doing anything. He’s coming to the Hall of fame to get his little award and go back home.”

“No, let’s being doing a show, to show that I’m alive and well,” he added.

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s 2025 induction ceremony is set for November 8th at the at the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles.