Billy Joel has opened up about a dark period in his life, including how he attempted to take his own life.
In the new documentary Billy Joel: And So It Goes, the 76-year-old singer reveals that he attempted suicide twice in his early twenties, fell into a coma, and battled a severe mental health crisis sparked by an affair with his bandmate’s wife, per PEOPLE.
In his early 20s, Joel was living with his bandmate and best friend Jon Small, Jon’s wife Elizabeth Weber, and their child. The three were close, and Joel and Weber spent a lot of time together.
But things slowly turned into something more.
“Bill and I spent a lot of time together,” Weber says in the documentary. She describes the affair as a “slow build.”
Eventually, Joel confessed the truth to his friend. “I’m in love with your wife.”
“I was in love,” Joel admitted. “I felt very, very guilty about it. They had a child. I felt like a homewrecker. 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.”
The confrontation ended their band, Attila, and their friendship collapsed. Weber left, and Joel spiraled.
“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 said, per News.com.au.
“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."
His sister, Judy Molinari, tearfully recounted the harrowing moment. “He was in a coma for days and days and days,” she said. “I went to go see him in the hospital, and he was laying there white as a sheet. I thought that I’d killed him.”
Molinari had been working as a medical assistant at the time and had given Joel sleeping pills to help him rest — never expecting he would take them all.
When Joel woke up in the hospital, his mindset hadn’t changed. He said he was “very selfish” back then and recalled thinking he wanted to try again — but this time, “right.”
The second attempt came when he drank a bottle of lemon Pledge. Small — despite their fractured friendship — rushed him to the hospital.
“Even though our friendship was blowing up, Jon saved my life,” Joel said.
Small reflected: “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.”
Following the two suicide attempts, Joel checked himself into a psychiatric observation ward. The stay changed his life.
“I got out of the observation ward and I thought to myself, you can utilize all those emotions to channel that stuff into music,” he said.
And that’s exactly what he did.
Joel went on to marry Elizabeth Weber years later - they were husband and wife from 1973 to 1982.
If you or someone you know is struggling or in crisis, help is available. Call or text 988 or visit 988lifeline.org.