Roger Daltrey has been made a knight bachelor in the King’s Birthday Honours, despite once claiming he was “too political” to “ever” attain such a position.
The Who frontman was named in the annual honours list on Friday (13 June), and said in a statement that he was “very humbled” to be acknowledged for his services to charity and music.
Sir Roger, 81, launched and curated the Teenage Cancer Trust’s Royal Albert Hall concerts from 2000 to 2025, raising millions for charity.
In a 2022 interview, however, he doubted that he would join fellow musicians such as Mick Jagger and Elton John in receiving a knighthood.
“I don’t care about things like that; it’s not important in my life,” he told Forbes at the time.
“I’ve probably been too political, too critical of our leaders to ever attain that kind of position. But I don’t give a crap. I say what I feel at the time. If I’m wrong, I’ll stand up and say, ‘Sorry, I was wrong.’”
He continued: “I don’t care what people say about me. Nobody’s going to like you all of the time. Some people will like you, some not, some will dislike you a whole lot, some will like you a whole lot. I’m a human being, and none of us is perfect.”
In his statement on Friday, Daltrey said it was “strange” to receive the honour: “it’s an experience that I’ve never had before,” he told the Press Association. “I’m very humbled by it.
“But equally, pride isn’t something you wear on the outside, you can’t say you’re proud of that, I’m not proud… It’s something that you wear in your heart, and this sits very well in my heart, because it’s for the charity, it is for the music… How lucky was I?”
He said he was particularly pleased to be honoured for his charity work, which will see him remain an honorary patron of the Teenage Cancer Trust, while The Cure frontman Robert Smith takes over the curation of the London concert series next year.
“It’s a dream come true for me, but it’s especially a dream because the charity means so much,” the musician said.
Sir Roger first rose to fame in the Sixties with his band The Who and songs such as “My Generation” and “I Can’t Explain”.
Together with bandmates Pete Townshend, Keith Moon and John Entwistle, he became known for energetic live performances that frequently culminated in the band smashing up their instruments.
Asked whether he could have predicted his knighthood during the band’s early dates, Sir Roger responded: “No, I mean, you’ve got to remember, we came from post-war England, I was born in an air raid.
“We had hardly anything at all, but that was a blank canvas to paint [whatever] we wanted to do in our lives. We could paint ourselves onto that canvas and make it count, and we got into music, we got lucky, it’s as simple as that.”
Moon, The Who’s original drummer, died in 1978, while bassist Entwistle died in 2002. Townshend and Sir Roger have continued to tour as The Who, and recently announced that they would be embarking on a farewell tour of North America later this year.
Sir Roger published his autobiography, Thanks a Lot Mr Kibblewhite, in 2018.
Additional reporting by Press Association.
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