Over the years, Billy Joel has been married four separate times. And while all his love stories were surely unique, Joel’s history with his first wife, Elizabeth Weber, was decidedly unconventional.
In his new documentary, Billy Joel: And So It Goes, the “Uptown Girl” singer talked about having an affair with Weber when she was still married to his bandmate and best friend, Jon Small. “Bill and I spent a lot of time together,” Weber said in the documentary, per People.
The truth came out when one day Joel opened up about his feelings to Small himself. “I’m in love with your wife,” he told his bandmate.
“I felt very, very guilty about it,” Joel admitted. “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.”
Billy Joel & Wife Elizabeth Weber.
Ron Galella Collection via Getty
After that day, everything took a turn. Their band Attila ceased to exist, Weber took off, and Joel started drinking to ease the pain of losing his love and betraying his best friend. Then, he started struggling with depression.
“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 admitted. “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.”
Hitting rock bottom, Joel attempted suicide twice, once with his sister’s sleeping pills and the other after he drank a bottle of “lemon Pledge.” In the second attempt, Small was the person who found him and took him to the hospital.
“Even though our friendship was blowing up, Jon saved my life,” Joel said.
“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,” Small said. “Eventually, I forgave him.”
Joel was eventually married to Weber from 1973 to 1982.
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