Meg White, the drummer for the White Stripes, continues to captivate the public imagination years after the band stopped touring and recording. A recent, now-deleted Daily Mail article that mistakenly stalked the wrong person highlights how much interest still surrounds the musician, who has largely retreated from public life.
A Retreat From the Spotlight
In February 2011, the White Stripes announced they would no longer tour or release new music. The decision was not based on “artistic differences” or “health issues”; instead, it was made “mostly to preserve what is beautiful and special about the band and have it stay that way.”
Since then, Jack White has built a successful solo career and continued working with his other bands, the Raconteurs and the Dead Weather. Meg White, however, has preferred to be a private citizen. She politely declined to speak for a 2023 Elle story and did not attend the White Stripes’ 2025 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction.
A Reluctant Public Figure
Meg had an uneasy relationship with being a public figure during the band's active years. She was notoriously shy, once telling NPR about advice a teacher gave her: “She wrote in my yearbook to speak softly and carry a big stick, you know? And I took to that heart.” The White Stripes also canceled tour dates in 2007 due to Meg’s “acute anxiety,” which Jack later spoke about candidly. “To go full-speed from a dead-halt is overwhelming, and we had to take a break.”
Meg started playing drums in 1997 at Jack’s behest, with the first song the duo played together being David Bowie’s Moonage Daydream. She skipped formal music lessons in favor of a more unvarnished creativity, which irked some who expected virtuosity.
Criticism and Recognition
Criticism of her playing was often sexist. A 2006 article outlined this in detail, from Pitchfork calling her drumming “pancake-handed” to a 2007 Pearl Jam message board thread titled “Official Meg White can’t play thread.” In 2023, a journalist apologized after intense outcry over his comment that “the tragedy of the White Stripes is how great they would’ve been with a half decent drummer.”
Jack White has always defended her. “Meg is the best part of this band,” he told Rolling Stone in 2005, adding: “When she started to play drums with me, just on a lark, it felt liberating and refreshing.” He also said, “It will always be us two. I will never do the White Stripes with another drummer. She’ll never do it with another guitarist.”
A Unique Legacy
Her drumming was central to the band's sound, from the thumping kickdrum on The Hardest Button to Button to the buoyant playing on Fell In Love With a Girl and Hotel Yorba. Later tracks like Icky Thump and Blue Orchid featured a heavier edge thanks to her grooves.
When the White Stripes were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Jack did not perform in Meg’s absence. Instead, Twenty One Pilots played Seven Nation Army, while Olivia Rodrigo and Feist performed We’re Going To Be Friends. Meg sent a note of gratitude that Jack read, and he noted she helped write and shape his speech. “A lot of punctuation corrections too,” he quipped. “She’s pretty good at that.”
With this honor, Meg became just the third female drummer inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, after Gina Schock of the Go-Go’s and Moe Tucker of the Velvet Underground. Speaking to Elle in 2023, Rodrigo noted Meg’s playing taught her “the value of simplicity in music … that a truly great song doesn’t need to have crazy production or layers of sound. It just needs to move you. You can sense her passion in every song she plays.” Meg proved that a rock star could be on her own terms, both during and after a music career.
