Billy Joel opened up about a dark part of his life.
In the first half of Billy Joel: And So It Goes, the Piano Man singer’s documentary, the 76-year-old attempted to take his life twice and then fell into a coma after he had an affair with his former bandmate’s wife.
While in his early 20s, Joel, who missed the premiere of the documentary, was in a band, Attila with his best friend, Jon Small.
He moved in with Small, his son and Elizabeth Weber, who was Small’s wife at that time. “Bill and I spent a lot of time together,” Elizabeth said in the documentary.
When Small started suspecting her and Joel, the musician came to him with the truth: “I’m in love with your wife.”
“I felt very, very guilty about it. They had a child. I felt like a homewrecker,” the Uptown Girl crooner confessed, adding, “I was just in love with a woman and I got punched in the nose which I deserved. Jon was very upset. I was very upset.”
This confrontation marked the end of Attila as well as Joel’s friendship with Small and while Weber took off, the singer and pianist started drinking.
“I had no place to live. I was sleeping in laundromats and I was depressed I think to the point of almost being psychotic,” he revealed in the documentary.
Joel continued, “So I figured, ‘That’s it. I don’t want to live anymore.’ I was just in a lot of pain and it was sort of like, ‘Why hang out? Tomorrow is going to be just like today is and today sucks.’ So, I just thought I’d end it all.”
After his first unsuccessful attempt, Joel acknowledged that he was “very selfish” at the time and remembered waking up in the hospital thinking he wanted to do it again, but this time “right.”
He then splurged on a bottle of “lemon Pledge,” and it was eventually Small who took him to the hospital.
“Even though our friendship was blowing up, Jon saved my life,” Joel said to which Small added, “He never really said anything to me. The only practical answer I can give as to why Billy took it so hard was because he loved me that much and that it killed him to hurt me that much. Eventually I forgave him.”
