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Billy Joel was in ‘coma for days’ after suicide attempt over affair with friend's wife
Billy Joel's documentary reveals his past suicide attempts linked to his affair with former Attila bandmate Jon Small's wife, Elizabeth Weber.
Billy Joel opened up about his multiple suicide attempts in his new documentary, Billy Joel: And So It Goes, which premiered Wednesday. The 76-year-old revealed that he tried to take his own life after falling into depression following an affair with his friend Jon Small’s wife, Elizabeth Weber, per People.
Billy Joel gets candid about his multiple suicide attempts after affair with friend's wife
Joel recalled falling “in love” with Weber while living in her and Small's home in his 20s. “Bill and I spent a lot of time together,” she said in the documentary, adding that their romance was a “slow build.” When the music producer became suspicious, the Piano Man hitmaker confessed, “I'm in love with your wife.”
“I felt very, very guilty about it. They had a child. I felt like a homewrecker,” Joel said in the film, which premiered at the Tribeca Festival in New York City. “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,” he added. The affair marked the end of their musical group, Attila and also their friendship.
This caused Joel to begin drinking, and with no place left to live, he began “sleeping in laundromats.” “I was just in a lot of pain,” he went on, adding, “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 Joel's sister gave him sleeping pills, he “took them all.” A visibly emotional Judy Molinari said in the documentary, “He was in a coma for days and days and days. 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 tried to take his life again by drinking a bottle of “lemon Pledge.” Despite his feud with Joel, Small took him to the hospital. Recalling the incident, the songwriter said, “Even though our friendship was blowing up, Jon saved my life.”
“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,” Small said of Joel. Years later, the Honesty crooner reconnected with Weber and was notably married to her from 1973 to 1982.
