If you or someone you know is having thoughts of suicide, please contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255).
Billy Joel’s ex-wife doesn’t believe the singer was responsible for the breakdown of her first marriage to his best friend and bandmate.
“I never thought of Bill as the homewrecker,” Elizabeth Weber recently told Us Weekly, adding that she had to “tread carefully” because “Jon [Small] and I didn’t have a great romance.”
In a new documentary, “Billy Joel: And So It Goes,” the Piano Man detailed the anguish he went through when he told his friend he was in love with his wife.
Joel first met Weber in the ‘60s while she was married to Small, People magazine reported. Their affair broke up the band Attila, which impacted Joel’s mental health. In the documentary, he described spiraling into a deep depression, which resulted in two suicide attempts.
“I was just in love with a woman, and I got punched in the nose, which I deserved,” the 76-year-old recalled in the documentary. “I felt very, very guilty about it. They had a child, you know? I felt like a homewrecker.”
But “the home was wrecked,” Weber clarified.
“We didn’t have a deep connection, Jon and I,” she told Us Weekly. “Almost in a way, my life began again when my son was born. Sean just lit up every room. He was an adorable, precocious child. So I really never thought of Bill as a homewrecker because there wasn’t much home to wreck.”
After some time apart, Joel and Weber reconnected and eventually married in 1973. They divorced in 1982.
Joel went on to marry Christie Brinkley in 1985. They welcomed a daughter, Alexa Ray Joel, that same year before calling it quits in 1994. He was married to cookbook author Katie Lee from 2004 to 2009 and said “I do” once more to former executive Alexis Roderick. They share two children, Della Rose Joel and Remy Anne Joel.
WATCH: BILLY JOEL’S FRIEND AND COLLABORATOR HOPES TO SEE HIM PERFORM AGAIN AFTER BRAIN DIAGNOSIS
Weber also opened up to Us Weekly about where she stands with Joel today.
“If I wanna talk to him or if I have something to say, I am able to contact him whenever I want to,” she said. “But he has a wife, and he has children and, right now, he’s struggling with something that’s… that’s a big thing. So [our relationship] is as close as it needs to be for two people who decided to divorce 40 years ago.”
Earlier this year, Joel was diagnosed with a brain condition that forced him to cancel all of his scheduled concerts.
The five-time Grammy winner was diagnosed with normal pressure hydrocephalus (NPH), which occurs when cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) builds up inside or around the brain. It has led to problems with hearing, vision and balance for the musician.
In the documentary, Weber admitted that she and Small “were not a good fit.”
“We were very young, and we didn’t really know much of anything,” she said. “And I got more and more dissatisfied with the life I was living, and then things got complicated.”
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That’s when she and Joel began spending more and more time together.
“When you just find someone you’re comfortable with … and can finish your sentences and know what you’re thinking without saying anything, sometimes it’s a low build,” she said.
Looking back at his marriage, Small said Weber was important to him, “but I think I was not the guy she hoped I would be.”
Still, Small didn’t suspect that his marriage would unravel so suddenly.
“I kept seeing that Billy was not the same guy. Something was the matter, and Billy one day came up to me, became a little honest and said to me, ‘I’m in love with your wife.’ So, it was a very devastating thing for me because these were basically my two best friends.
“He’s crying, and he’s telling me he feels so bad, and he didn’t know what to do about it. How does he break his best friend’s heart? But he said she was so powerful to him that it was worth it to him to lose our friendship for it.”
Joel said “that was the end of my relationship with Jon for a while.” When Weber later left, he began drinking and attempted suicide twice.
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“I figured that’s it. I don’t want to live anymore,” Joel said. “I was just in a lot of pain. It was like why hang out? Tomorrow’s going to be just like today, and today sucks. So, I just thought I’d end it all.”
After his second suicide attempt, Small was the one who took Joel to the hospital.
“Even though our friendship had blown up, Jon saved my life,” Joel said.
Small said even though Joel never said anything to him about it, “The practical answer I could give why Billy took it so hard was because he loved me that much and that it killed him to hurt me that much.”
He eventually forgave Joel.
“I finally got over it where it was like, ‘OK.’ He thought it was over for him, but, to me, he didn’t even start living yet.”
