Billy Joel reveals he attempted suicide twice after affair with bandmate’s wife

Billy Joel. Image from his Instagram.

Trigger warning: mentions of suicide, self-harm

Billy Joel revealed in his new documentary, “And So It Goes,” that he fell into a coma after he attempted to take his own life twice due to his affair with a bandmate’s wife. 

The documentary narrated the days when Joel was part of a hard rock band called Attila alongside his then-best friend, Jon Small. 

The “Your Song” singer and Small lived under the same roof with the latter’s wife, Elizabeth Weber, and their young son. 

Joel then confessed to Small that he was in love with Weber after they had spent a lot of time together and developed a “slow build” romance.

“I felt very, very guilty about it. They had a child. I felt like a homewrecker,” said the award-winning singer. “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 “Vienna” hitmaker said that he thought it was “better if he just ended it all” after the affair led to the separation of the band, his falling-out with Small, and his eviction from the house. 

“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. “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.”

Joel’s sister Judy, then a medical assistant, prescribed sleeping pills to the singer, which he used for his first suicide attempt. 

“He was in a coma for days and days and days,” Judy shared. “I went to go see him in the hospital, and he was lying there white as a sheet. I thought that I’d killed him.”

The “Uptown Girl” singer attempted to take his life for the second time by drinking an entire bottle of a cleaning product before his ex-best friend brought him to the hospital.

After the suicide attempts, Joel checked himself into an observation ward, where he stayed for a couple of weeks before he realized he could “utilize all those emotions to channel that stuff into music.” 

Joel and Weber eventually reunited and got married. Their marriage lasted from 1973 to 1982. 

The “She’s Always a Woman” hitmaker is now married to Alexis Roderick, his fourth wife.

Last month, Joel canceled all his upcoming concerts across North America and England after he was diagnosed with fluid buildup in his brain, which has affected his “hearing, vision and balance.”

“And So It Goes” premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival on June 4, and the digital version is slated to hit HBO in July.  /ra