Will Meg White Show Up at the Rock Hall of Fame?

The annual Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony is a place where miracles regularly take place. Over the decades, sleeping rock giants like Led Zeppelin, the Police, Cream, the Byrds, the Velvet Underground, Simon and Garfunkel, and Talking Heads have briefly reawakened to play a few songs before returning to their slumbers. And even though Kiss and Journey with Steve Perry didn’t wind up playing, they still put aside their vast differences long enough to stand together one last time as they accepted the honor.

But the power of the Hall of Fame is facing a unique test this year when the White Stripes enter since a reunion this November — even one where they don’t play a note of music together — would require drummer Meg White to show her face in public for the first time in many years. Fans are going to spend the next seven months speculating about what’s going to happen that night, even if word comes out via Jack White or another surrogate that it’s likely not happening. Nobody will be 100 percent convinced until the night comes, and she’s not there.

To take a few steps back, Meg White was a reluctant star even in the early days of the White Stripes. Check out this early MTV interview from around the time of 2001’s White Blood Cells where Jack does 99.5 percent of the talking, and Meg just sits there smiling, visibly uncomfortable.

“I’m just a very shy person,” Meg told Rolling Stone‘s David Fricke in 2005. Fricke noted that she defended the “primal quality of her drumming with sweet firmness.” “That is my strength. A lot of drummers would feel weird about being that simplistic.”

In that same feature, Jack heaped praise on Meg. “Meg is the best part of this band,” he said. “It never would have worked with anybody else, because it would have been too complicated. When she started to play drums with me, just on a lark, it felt liberating and refreshing. There was something in it that opened me up. It was my doorway to playing the blues, without anyone over my shoulder going, ‘Oh, white-boy blues, white-boy bar band.” I could really get down to something.’”

And even though Jack was working in side projects at the time, Meg said she didn’t worry about the future of the group. “Jack’s always done five things at once,” she said. “He was in two other bands when we started this one. This is not unusual.”

The White Stripes did indeed come back together for 2007’s Icky Thump after Jack White took off much off 2006 to focus on the Raconteurs, but it wound up being their final album. And in a note to fans in September 2007, they shared an unfortunate news update about their ongoing tour with fans. “The White Stripes announced today that they are canceling their forthcoming tour due to health issues,” said the duo. “Meg White is suffering from acute anxiety and is unable to travel at this time.”

Their last full show took place July 31, 2007, at the Snowden Grove Amphitheater, in Southaven, Mississippi. And they wouldn’t appear together again as the White Stripes until February 20, 2009, when they played “We’re Going to be Friends” on the final episode of Late Night With Conan O’Brien.

Two years later, the White Stripes announced their breakup. “The reason is not due to artistic differences or lack of wanting to continue,” read a post on Jack White’s website. “Nor any health issues as both Meg and Jack are feeling fine and in good health. It is for a myriad of reasons, but mostly to preserve what is beautiful and special about the band and have it stay that way.”

The post continued: “Both Meg and Jack hope this decision isn’t met with sorrow by their fans but that it is seen as a positive move done out of respect for the music that the band has created. It is also done with the utmost respect to those fans who’ve shared in those creations, with their feelings considered greatly.”

In the years that followed, Jack kept the White Stripes legacy alive by playing a large amount of their songs at his solo shows, a practice that continues to this day. And Meg simply vanished. Her marriage to guitarist Jackson Smith, son of Patti Smith, quietly ended in 2013. And the next year, Jack admitted to Rolling Stone‘s Jonah Weiner that he was barely in contact with her.

“I don’t think anyone talks to Meg,” he said. “She’s always been a hermit. When we lived in Detroit, I’d have to drive over to her house if I wanted to talk to her, so now it’s almost never…I remember hearing Ringo Starr say, ‘I always felt sorry for Elvis, because in the Beatles we had each other to talk about what it felt like. Elvis was by himself.’ I was like, ‘Shit, try being in a two-piece where the other person doesn’t talk!’”

And even though a handful of industrious journalists have attempted to track her down for an interview over the years, none of have pulled it off. Elle‘s Melissa Giannini gave it a mighty try in 2023, and managed to talk to one of her friends. “She spent 15 years traveling and touring and playing,” said the friend, who asked not to be named. “It’s not that odd to think that she just likes to be home.”

Enormous paydays for reunions tours have managed to bring even the most reclusive people out of their homes. Paul Westerberg even reformed with the Replacements a few years ago, though he wore a series of T-shirts on the final leg that slowly spelled out, “I have always loved you. Now I must whore my past.” In other words, he was going through the motions merely for the money.

Anything’s possible, but it’s hard to imagine Meg making that same sort of moral compromise in the future. And even though an emotional onstage moment at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame would give a future White Stripes biopic a perfect happy ending, that’s not usually how life works. The safe money is on her not going. (We look forward to having a similar conversation about D’arcy Wretzky when the Smashing Pumpkins get in.)

Let’s hope that Meg at least watches the Disney+ livestream and smiles when the White Stripes are inducted. Great moments don’t always need to play out in public. And Meg White doesn’t owe us anything.