Billy Joel Doc Reveals Singer’s Suicide Attempts & Coma After Affair with Bandmate’s Wife

Billy Joel’s is exploring his painful past in the new HBO documentary “Billy Joel: And So It Goes.”

People Magazine reports the first half of the doc premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival on Wednesday, revealing he suffered a downward spiral in his twenties.

The doc recounts how Joel was in a band called Attila with his best friend Jon Small. Joel ended up moving in with Small, his wife Elizabeth Weber, and their son.

During that time Billy started developing feelings for Weber, eventually leading to an affair.

While Billy and Elizabeth would end up marrying years later, Billy explained that at the time, "I felt very, very guilty about [the affair]. They had a child. I felt like a homewrecker.  I was just in love with a woman.”

He told Jon he was in love with his wife, and Joel said, “I got punched in the nose, which I deserved. Jon was very upset. I was very upset."

The fight meant the end of Attila, and Joel’s life crumbled after that.

“I had no place to live,” he recalled in the doc. “I was sleeping in laundromats and I was depressed I think to the point of almost being psychotic. 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."

When his sister Judy Molinari, a medical assistant, gave him some sleeping pills to help him sleep, he took the whole bottle.

Judy recalled, “He was in a coma for days and days and days," adding, "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."

Billy said when he woke up, he only wanted to try again.

He went on to drink a bottle of Lemon Pledge, but this time it was Small who came to his aid.

Joel shared, “Even though our friendship was blowing up, Jon saved my life.”

Small weighed in, saying, "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."

The “Piano Man” singer sought help and gained a new perspective that took his life down a new path.

"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 explained.

Billy and Elizabeth were married from 1973-1982.

While Joel did not attend the Tribeca premiere of the doc after canceling his upcoming shows due to a brain disorder, Elizabeth was there.

Weber, who was also Joel’s manager for a time, told E! News, “He’s worked so hard all of his life. I’ve never known anybody who worked harder than he did in all those years we were together and working together.”

As for his health issues, she said, “I just want him to be restored to good health so he can enjoy his life and his wife and his children. He earned that. The restoration of his good health is all I really care about.” 

Joel, 76, is suffering from normal pressure hydrocephalus (NPH).

“Extra” spoke with renowned brain expert Dr. Daniel Amen who explained, “Normal pressure hydrocephalus or NPH is a brain disorder that happens when there is too much fluid, cerebral spinal fluid building up.”

Dr. Amen went on, “The good news is it’s treatable, and often they’ll put a shunt in those ventricles to drain off the fluid and people can be remarkably better.”