Billy Joel Reveals He Tried to Kill Himself, Twice, In Harrowing Scene from HBO Doc ‘Billy Joel: And So It Goes’

In a harrowing scene from the new HBO Billy Joel documentary, Billy Joel: And So It Goes Part 1, the famed singer-songwriter opens about a dark time in his life when he felt so depressed, so helpless, that he tried to take his own life—twice.

Directed by Susan Lacy and Jessica Levin, this five-hour, two-part documentary special—Part 1 airing on HBO and streaming on HBO Max on Friday, July 18 at 8 p.m. ET/PT, and Part 2 airing on Friday, July 25 at 8 p.m. ET/PT—is a deep dive into Joel’s life. The archival footage and photos are anchored by present-day interviews with Joel himself (now 76, and recent diagnosed with a brain condition that forced him to cancel his tour), and those who know him best, including his friend and former Attilla bandmate Jon Small, ex-wife and former manager Elizabeth Weber Small, and his sister Judy Molinari. Together, they tell the shocking story of Joel’s 1970 affair with his best friend’s wife, and the severe depression that followed his romantic and friendship break-ups.

Before he was the Piano Man, Joel was in a heavy metal-inspired rock band, Attilla, with his friend Jon Small. Things were good—until Joel fell in love with Small’s wife, Elizabeth, and had an affair. ” I felt very, very guilty about it,” Joel says of the affair in the documentary. “They had a child.”

Joel came clean to his friend about the affair and “got punched in the nose, which I deserved.” Joel and Small’s friendship seemed to be over for good. And to make matters worse, Elizabeth took her son, and left both men. Joel was left with no friend, no band, and no girlfriend.

Joel, who was 20 or 21 at the time, said he felt despondent. “I drank a lot. I had no place to live. I was sleeping in laundry mats. I was depressed to the point of almost being psychotic. I figured, that’s it, I don’t want to live anymore.”

Small recalled that his friend would call him and “threaten to kill himself.”

“I was just in a lot of pain,” Joel explains. “It was sort of like, why hang out? Tomorrow is gonna be just like today is, and today sucks. So, I just thought I’d end it all.”

Joel sister, Judy Molinari, was a medical assistant at the time and agreed to get Joel sleeping pills to help his insomnia. She never thought he would take them all at once to attempt to end his life.

“He was in a coma for days,” Molinari recalls in the documentary, through tears. “I went to see him in the hospital, and he was laying there, white as a sheet. I felt that I killed him.”

“It was very selfish,” Joel admits in his own present-day interview. “I didn’t think about other people, how it would impact them. I remember waking up in a hospital. My first thought was, ‘I couldn’t even do this right. You can’t even do yourself in.’ So, I thought, I’m gonna try to do this again.”

This time—according to Molinari—Joel “drank a bottle of Lemon Pledge,” a cleaning product, while he was recovering from his hospital stay at their parents’ house. It was Joel’s ex-friend Jon Small who drove Joel to the hospital after his second suicide attempt.

After that, Joel moved back in with his mother, which he considered an “absolute failure.” Determined to do something to get out of his situation, Joel decided to seek out psychiatric help from professions. Though he regretted checking himself in, his experience in the ward ultimately showed him there were many people far worse on than him.

“I checked into an observation ward,” Joel recalled. “They gave me Thorazine. I would go over to the nurses’ station and say, ‘Hey, I’m OK. These people are crazy!’ ‘OK, Mr. Joel, here’s your pills.’ They released me after a couple of weeks, and I felt really chagrined. These people had really deep psychiatric problems. I was just feeling sorry for myself. I said, ‘That’s it. I’m not ever gonna feel that sorry for myself again.’”

After he was free from the ward, Joel said, he was determined to “use all of those emotions, channel that stuff, into music.” He moved into a tiny apartment—so small that he had to sleep under his piano—and wrote music personal to his own life. That was the beginning of Joel becoming the celebrated songwriter he’s known as today.

Joel eventually reunited with Elizabeth, they married in 1973, and she went on to become Joel’s manager, until the couple divorced in 1982. And, and in the end, Joel’s friend Jon Small forgave him. “Eventually, I forgave him,” Small says in the documentary. “I finally got over it.”

Billy Joel: And So It Goes Part 1 will air on HBO and stream on HBO Max on Friday, July 18 at 8 p.m. ET/PT. Part 2 of the documentary will air and stream next Friday, July 25 at 8 p.m. ET/PT.