Billy Joel has revealed that he tried to take his personal life twice after having an affair along with his finest pal’s spouse.
The singer-songwriter spoke in regards to the ordeal in his new two-part documentary Billy Joel: And So It Goes, which premiered earlier this week and is about to air on HBO this summer season.
As reported by Folks, the documentary sees Joel recount the truth that within the early Seventies, whereas he was within the onerous rock band Attila alongside his finest pal on the time Jon Small, he developed a romantic relationship with Small’s spouse Elizabeth Weber.
“I felt very, very responsible about it,” Joel stated within the doc. “That they had a toddler. I felt like a homewrecker. I used to be simply in love with a lady, and I bought punched within the nostril, which I deserved. Jon was very upset. I used to be very upset.”
Attila quickly cut up up and Joel, who had been residing with Small and Weber, discovered himself homeless. “I had no place to dwell,” he continued. “I used to be sleeping in laundromats and I used to be depressed, I believe to the purpose of just about being psychotic. So I figured, ‘That’s it. I don’t wish to dwell anymore.’ I used to be simply in a number of ache, and it was form of like, ‘Why hang around? Tomorrow goes to be identical to at the moment is and at the moment sucks.’ So, I simply thought I’d finish all of it.”
He recalled that his sister Judy, a medical employee, had given him capsules to assist him sleep on the time and at some point he “determined that he was going to take all of them”.
“He was in a coma for days and days and days,” Judy stated within the documentary. “I went to go see him within the hospital, and he was mendacity there white as a sheet. I assumed that I’d killed him.”
Joel stated he vowed to do it “proper” the second time, revealing that he drank a whole bottle of the cleansing product Lemon Pledge. It was Small that took him to the hospital. “Regardless that our friendship was blowing up, Jon saved my life,” Joel stated.
Small added within the documentary: “He by no means actually stated something to me, the one sensible reply I can provide as to why Billy took it so onerous was as a result of he liked me that a lot and that it killed him to harm me that a lot. Finally I forgave him.”
Joel stated he then entered himself into an statement ward for a lot of weeks. “I bought out of the statement ward, and I assumed to myself, you possibly can make the most of all these feelings to channel that stuff into music,” he stated.
The documentary premiered on the Tribeca Movie Competition on June 4, however Joel was not current as a consequence of his present well being struggles.
On the finish of Might, he was identified with the mind dysfunction regular stress hydrocephalus (NPH). He has subsequently cancelled all of his upcoming tour dates, and his daughter Alexa Ray has shared that he’s “completely dedicated to creating a full restoration with ongoing physical-therapy remedies as he continues to regain his energy”.
Joel has insisted “I’m not dying”, along with his pal Howard Stern lately saying: “He’s doing high quality. He does have points, however he stated, ‘Yeah, you possibly can inform individuals: I’m not dying’. You recognize, he desires individuals to know that.”