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Yahoo
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Billy Joel Says Wife Alexis Was 'Unimpressed with the Whole Billy Joel Thing' When They First Met — Which 'Impressed' Him
The legendary musician talks about meeting his wife for the first time in the new HBO documentary 'Billy Joel: And So It Goes' Billy Joel brought out all the stops for his wife Alexis the first time they met — but she wasn't exactly impressed by a private concert. Joel, 76, reflects on the first time he met Alexis, 43, in the new HBO documentary Billy Joel: And So It Goes, and recalls that her nonchalance toward his skills drew him to her. 'When you meet someone who captures your imagination, it renews, it revitalizes,' he says in the film. 'I remember the first time I met Alexis, we went to my house, and I wanted to play the piano for her. It's a form of communication for me.' The 'Just the Way You Are' singer says he drew on a famous scene from the Marilyn Monroe film The Seven-Year Itch, in which the character trying to woo Monroe's character plays a song by the Russian composer Sergei Rachmaninoff. 'I'm playing that and she's completely unimpressed with it, totally. She couldn't care less what I'm playing and I'm thinking, 'Oh OK, this isn't working,'' Joel says. 'She was very unimpressed with the whole Billy Joel thing, which impressed me. Because I thought, 'OK, maybe she's just here because she likes me, not the Billy Joel guy.'' Joel says he was initially uncertain as to whether he wanted to start a new relationship, as he was fresh off a divorce from his third wife, Katie Lee, and was wary. Still, the star explains that 'something popped,' and he knew he was open to love once more. Alexis — whom he went on to marry in 2015 and welcome daughters Della, 9, and Remy, 7 — also appears in the documentary, and says that the couple got to know each other better after that first meeting through phone calls and emails. She also praises his skills in the kitchen, saying Joel would often cook dinner for her to come home to while she was working in finance. 'We had a couple years together before we had kids and he had completely stopped doing shows,' she says. 'We traveled everywhere. We did a motorcycle trip from Maine down to Long Island, we were on boats 24/7. We were in Europe. We had so much fun.' Alexis has been a pillar of strength for the star in recent months as he deals with a treatable brain condition called normal pressure hydrocephalus (The rocker tells PEOPLE in this week's issue that he's 'OK' and not 'deathly ill'). Dennis Arfa, the star's longtime booking agent, tells PEOPLE he's 'so happy' to see Joel 'raising his children and being so in love with them and Alexis and his family.' 'It's quite rewarding,' Arfa says. 'I'm always rooting for Billy's happiness and his success. I've seen Billy have a lot of happy times through his life, [but] he's had to deal with certain adversity. I'm happy for him in this chapter, and I'm looking forward to the next chapter with him.' Joel himself adds that he's 'really enjoying this time in my life.' Billy Joel: And So It Goes (now streaming on HBO Max) is a rare, revelatory glimpse into the private world of one of rock music's most enduring acts, and how he overcame substance abuse, mental health struggles, and more to find peace. Read the original article on People
Time of India
23-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Time of India
"There was some self-revelatory stuff": Billy Joel opens up on challenges, struggles of his life, career in new documentary
Billy Joel's whose music speaks a lot about him, is all set to open up about his complicated life in a new two-part HBO documentary ' And So It Goes' Billy Joel 's whose music speaks a lot about him, is all set to open up about his complicated life in a new two-part HBO documentary 'Billy Joel: And So It Goes', according to People. "I've resisted this kind of thing for so long. I'm sick of talking about myself," said Joel, adding, "Some of the stupid stuff I did, that's painful to talk about. But they asked me for some thematic guidance. I said, 'Just tell the truth.'" The documentary, directed by Susan Lacy and Jessica Levin, is a rare, revelatory glimpse into the private world of one of rock music's most enduring acts -- and how he overcame substance abuse, mental health struggles and more to find peace and happiness with his wife, Alexis, and his three daughters. "There was some stuff I found out about myself. There was some self-revelatory stuff," said Joel, while Lacy added, "He actually thanked me for connecting the dots of his life, and he said, 'I now understand why I did what I did.' I think it was a revelation to him in some ways as well, this story." Joel's story includes his incredibly successful music career, throughout which he's sold more than 150 million records and won five Grammy Awards thanks to hits like "Piano Man," "Just the Way You Are" and "We Didn't Start the Fire." Though he hasn't released a pop album in 32 years, Joel's cultural relevance has never wavered, thanks in part to his epic, 10-year Madison Square Garden residency that ended in July 2024, according to People. There are also some lesser-known aspects of his life that included the painful absence of his father from much of his life, a complicated beginning to his marriage with first wife Elizabeth Weber, struggles over the years with alcohol abuse and a contentious relationship with the media. "My goal was to get it over with," Joel said about his initial involvement in the film. "When I do interviews, people just ask you about yourself, and you get a little self-conscious about it eventually. It's almost embarrassing. When you're talking about your personal life detached from the material... I suppose there's a little bit of wariness involved." The film features interviews with members of his inner circle, including his sister Judy, daughter Alexa Ray, 39, and others, as well as longtime friends such as lighting designer Steve Cohen and booking agent Dennis Arfa. "Billy has always been a blue-collar guy, a man of the people. He's always been honest. He's funny, he loves to entertain," Cohen, an executive producer on the film, said of what it's like to be friends with Joel behind the scenes. "I think all of that came through in the documentary. I didn't see much of a difference between the Billy I know and interact with every day and the Billy in this film." The film is structured around Joel's iconic song catalogue, as he admits that much of his lyrics are autobiographical. "Big Shot," he says, is a "hangover" song, while "I Go to Extremes" covers the ups and downs of his marriage to then-wife Christie Brinkley , according to People. "Vienna," he explains, is about his father Howard, who left Joel, his mother Rosalind and sister Judy when the star was 8 years old, and eventually settled in the Austrian city, where Joel tracked him down years later. "Co-director Susan Lacy pointed out that a lot of the things I was searching for were my father in my life, and I recognised that in the documentary," Joel said. "I said, 'You know what? I think that's true. I was looking for my dad," reported People.
Time Magazine
18-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Time Magazine
The Biggest Revelations in HBO's Billy Joel Documentary
Billy Joel, 76, who boasts 33 top 40 hits and five Grammy Awards, has had an expansive and exciting life, which comes into focus in a new documentary, And So It Goes. Directed by Susan Lacy and Jessica Levin, two-part HBO doc will put viewers in a Billy Joel state of mind. Named after Joel's favorite of his songs, it features all of the Long Island native's greatest hits—more than 110 of the 121 songs in his catalog—and highlights the songs that catapulted him to new heights in his career like 'Just the Way You Are,' 'Piano Man,' 'Captain Jack,' and 'We Didn't Start the Fire.' In addition to numerous family photos and home videos, viewers will see the rocker sitting for interviews at his home piano and rehearsing for his Madison Square Garden residency. There is never-before-seen footage of Joel playing 'Piano Man' at Columbia Records the day he signed with the label. His four wives, daughter Alexa, and half-brother Alex, a conductor, share family stories, while entertainment execs and musicians like Paul McCartney, Bruce Springsteen, and P!nk talk about Joel's impact on rock 'n' roll. 'He didn't actually see the film 'til it was finished, and we're really proud of that,' Lacy says. 'It's an independently-made film.' Here's a look at the most notable moments in And So It Goes. The women who inspired Billy Joel All three Billy Joel's ex-wives sit down for interviews in this doc series, and they speak highly of their relationships with him. And So It Goes features the first interview in 40 years with Joel's first wife, Elizabeth Weber, an early muse, who helped launch his career by picking 'Just the Way You Are' for one of his first albums The Stranger. It went on to win two Grammy Awards, and Paul McCartney says in the series that he has always wished that he had written that song. She worked as his manager until they parted ways in 1982, the same year he survived a motorcycle accident that shed light on his reckless behavior and drinking. 'I love Bill, I always will,' she says. 'We together were greater than the sum of the parts, and I am really proud of that.' His second wife, the model Christie Brinkley, made his music video for 'Uptown Girl' a hit, as she sashayed through a gas station while Joel, dressed as a gas station attendant, chased her. 'It was fun to have a whirlwind romance and certain aspects of that turn into music,' she says. They were one of the biggest celebrity couples of their time and were known for striking dramatic poses for the paparazzi. They had one daughter, Alexa Joel—who is also a singer—but Brinkley says Joel became difficult to live with because he didn't remember the things he did while he was drinking. His third wife, Katie Lee Biegel, a 23-year-old chef whom he married in 2004, got him to go to a Betty Ford rehab program after giving him an ultimatum. In the doc, she says their age difference ended up making them incompatible. She wanted to go out to all of the parties that Joel was invited to, and Joel wanted to stay home. 'I wanted to do all of the things together, but I guess that's where our age came into play,' she says. 'Also I think that there was always a little bit of resentment that I had pushed him to go to Betty Ford.' Joel has been married to Alexis Roderick, who worked at Morgan Stanley, since 2015. He was in retirement mode when they met, cooking salmon teriyaki for her when she got home from work. In the doc, he talks about playing the piano for Alexis as his way of wooing her, but she seemed unimpressed, and he was relieved that she was interested in him as a person versus him as a performer. They have two young children. 'After years of learning and personal growth, my kids have the most amazing version of him,' Alexis says. 'He has a history of very strong women being in his life,' says Levin, citing the fact that he was raised by a single mother and chose two women to direct And So It Goes. Billy Joel's search for his father Throughout the doc series And So It Goes, Joel talks about all of the time he spent trying to track down his father, Howard Joel, who walked out on his family in the 1950s. He found his father in Vienna in the early 1970s, when Joel was in his 20s. There, he also got to know his half-brother Alex, a classical music composer, who appears in And So It Goes. Howard Joel even joined Billy Joel on stage at a concert in Nuremberg, Germany, in 1995. Still, his father remained remote and distant. 'We never really made a strong connection,' Billy Joel says in And So It Goes. He describes his dad as 'the missing link' in his life. And yet, he forgave his father for not being present in his life. When he died in 2011, he 'kind of freaked out,' thinking, 'He's gone, and I'll never get to know him. I had no animosity towards him.' As Alexa Joel explains, 'It broke his heart a little bit that his father didn't come to him—he had to go to Vienna. He was always looking for that deeper connection.' However, she says he did find it through his brother Alex who is a conductor. In 2001, he recorded a classical album with pianist Hyung-Ki Joo as one way to pay tribute to his father's love of classical music. As the commentator, Howard Stern, says in And So It Goes, 'I think his drive comes from wanting to know his father through music.' Given his distant relationship with his own father, he has vowed to be a more involved father with the two young daughters he has through Alexis Roderick Joel. He's focused not on writing and recording at this stage in life, but on being the best dad he can be. As he puts it, 'These are things I missed. I want to make sure they don't miss it.' The stories behind Billy Joel classics 'Even for people who know the songs and sing along, they're gonna be like, 'Oh, okay. Now I know where Billy was in his life at that time, and why he was writing that song,' Levin says. As Joel describes his approach to song-writing, 'I don't dwell in a lot of metaphor and simile. I write like I talk.' He wrote send-ups of the music industry. He wrote 'Piano Man' when he was trying to make ends meet and playing piano at a bar called Executive Lounge in Los Angeles, and 'The Entertainer' was even more meta, about putting out 'Piano Man' and 'kvetching about having a hit record in the music business,' as Joel puts it. Many of Joel's songs are autobiographical. 'Vienna' is inspired by his journey to meet his dad in Vienna, Austria. 'New York State of Mind' is inspired by the red and gold-colored trees he saw on a bus trip en route to a rental house in the Hudson Valley. Thankfully, there was a piano in the house, and he says he 'ran upstairs to the piano, wrote this song probably within about an hour. It just came out.' Some of his most famous songs are about being head over heels in love. 'She's Got a Way' is about his love for his first wife, Elizabeth Weber, and 'The Longest Time' is about dating Christie Brinkley, while the song that the series is named after, 'And So It Goes,' is about relationships ending. 'True love isn't always floating on clouds and ecstasy. A lot of it is pain,' he says in the series. 'It's got a sour note in almost every chord…It's sort of like the end of a romance, no resolution, which is terrifying to consider. That's why I wrote it.' He wrote 'Lullabye (Goodnight, My Angel)' for his daughter, Alexa, so she'd know he would always be there for her. It's bittersweet for Alexa, who is moved that her father loved her so much to write a song about her, but it was also written at a time when his drinking was out of control, and his marriage to her mother, Christie Brinkley, was disintegrating. 'If there was a skeleton key to unlocking what's behind the songs, it would probably be my relationships with others,' Joel explains. 'Everything I write is influenced by someone else.' A little bit of trivia from the directors that's not in the doc: 'We Didn't Start the Fire,' which rattles off the names of newsmakers, was inspired by a conversation that Joel had with John Lennon's son Sean Lennon. As Lacy explains: 'Sean said, 'yeah, yeah, you guys are so lucky nothing had happened in your life. Look all the things that we have to deal with.' And Billy was like, 'Are you kidding me?'' Billy Joel today These days, Joel has a mansion in Florida, where he lives with his wife Alexis Roderick and their two young daughters. He loves to take out his boat Alexa, named after his first-born daughter. Boating is 'freedom,' he says, because 'you've left the land and you are on your own. You're navigating, you're controlling where you're going—so you've got to always be in control, and there's something exhilarating about that. I am in control. I am the captain of my ship, against all the forces of nature. It's a strong feeling, it's very powerful. It's healing.' In May 2025, the New York Times reported that he cancelled all of his upcoming concerts after being diagnosed with a brain disorder called normal pressure hydrocephalus, which affects his hearing, vision, and balance. He is currently recovering from a surgery and taking a break from performing. 'He's never forgotten where he comes from, and I think that's why people relate to him,' says Lacy. 'He has not forgotten that he comes from Hicksville, grew up in Levittown in a hardscrabble life, and it was a long, slow journey to the top for him.' Now he has had more time to reflect on his career, and And So It Goes is a product of that. 'I think music saved my life,' Joel says in the doc. 'It gave me a reason to live.' Alexa said her father would always say to her, 'if you do what you love, then you'll love what you do. That's really the secret to life. I think, for him, through all the sadness and all of the struggles that he went through, he was still doing what he loved and that's really what kept him going, kept the music coming.' Joel acknowledges he has his faults in And So It Goes, explaining, 'I've made a lot of mistakes in my life. I've grown from them. I've learned from them.' The series ends with him playing 'And So It Goes' on a Steinway and reflecting on how he still sees himself as a work in progress: 'I'm not finished. I'm as lost as everybody else. I'm still searching. I may not ever figure it all out, but I'm trying.'
Indian Express
06-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Indian Express
Billy Joel attempted suicide, overdosed and fell into coma after secret affair with friend's wife: Piano Man's early life unleashed in new doc
Billy Joel: And So It Goes, the documentary revolving around the early life and rise of the Piano Man, premiered at the Tribeca Festival's opening night. Joel, who was recently diagnosed with a brain disorder, forcing him to hit pause on events and promotional activities, remained absent from the night. However, in the new HBO documentary, the legendary singer opens up about the darkest chapter of his life, one that no one had heard about until now. Before the fame, before the sold-out concerts, Joel was a guy in his 20s who played in a band called Attila with his best friend, Jon Small. They lived together under one roof until one incident completely changed their lives forever. Also read: What is normal pressure hydrocephalus? Piano Man Billy Joel diagnosed with rare brain disorder In the first half of the documentary, Joel spoke about how he fell in love with Elizabeth, his best friend's wife. Elizabeth herself admitted in the doc that it wasn't instant, but a slow build. At the time, she and Small also had a kid together. But one day, once Jon sensed something was off, Billy told him the truth straight-up: 'I'm in love with your wife.' Joel admitted, 'I felt very, very guilty about it. They had a child. I felt like a homewrecker.' He further added, '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.' The incident left a mark on Joel's life. He started drinking, was booted from the house, had nowhere to go, and kept spending nights in a laundromat. '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, and today sucks. So, I just thought I'd end it all,' he said. Also read: Singer Billy Joel cancels concerts after brain disorder diagnosis Joel's sister, Judy Molinari, was a medical assistant at the time and often used to send him sleeping pills to help him deal with sleepless nights. But the musician revealed he tried taking them all at once and fell into a coma for several days. Judy said she thought she had killed her brother. '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.' When Billy finally woke up, he realised he had been selfish, and then decided to try again. This time, he drank a bottle of lemon-scented Pledge. However, Small—the same friend he had betrayed—was the one who rushed him to the hospital. Looking back, Jon said the only reason Billy might have taken it so hard was because he loved him that much. 'Eventually, I forgave him.' Once Joel got out, he decided to pour all that pain and guilt into his music. That led to his first solo album Cold Spring Harbor. For the unversed, Billy Joel and Elizabeth's story didn't end there. They ended up marrying in 1973 and were together until 1982. Elizabeth also took the role of his manager and took the credit for making Just the Way You Are a hit when record execs didn't believe in it. But the fame, stress, and Billy's substance use caught up with them, and she later chose to walk away. The documentary also shed light on how, in his early days, Joel played under a fake name (Bill Martin) in LA bars because of a bad record deal. According to the New York Times, Joel's time at the Executive Room inspired Piano Man, while Elizabeth helped him as the waitress, 'practising politics.' Joel also turned down a deal with Beatles producer George Martin because Martin didn't want to use his band. He later worked with Phil Ramone and rolled out The Stranger, one of his biggest studio albums of all time.
Express Tribune
06-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Express Tribune
Elizabeth Weber reemerges after decades for Billy Joel's HBO documentary
Elizabeth Weber, Billy Joel's first wife and longtime former manager, made headlines this week by publicly speaking for the first time in 43 years. The 82-year-old appeared at the premiere of And So It Goes, HBO's new two-part documentary on the music icon, during the 2025 Tribeca Festival in New York. Weber, often referred to as Joel's muse and the inspiration behind several of his classic songs, attended the event with her son Sean Small. Reflecting on her eight-year marriage to Joel, she told People, 'It was great then, it's great whenever I think about it, and it's great now.' The documentary dives deep into Billy Joel's early struggles, creative rise, and personal pain — much of which centered around Elizabeth. The two had a controversial beginning, with Elizabeth initially married to Joel's bandmate Jon Small. Despite the rocky start, she and Joel married in 1973, with Weber becoming a strategic force behind his success. She reportedly pushed him to release 'Just the Way You Are' — a decision that won him two Grammys. Weber also inspired iconic songs such as 'She's Always a Woman' and 'The Stranger.' However, their marriage ended in the early 1980s amid Joel's growing substance issues and a near-fatal motorcycle accident. Now, re-entering public life, Weber says she joined the project after encouragement from her granddaughters and co-director Susan Lacy. Notably absent was Joel, 75, who is recovering from normal pressure hydrocephalus. According to Lacy, he is undergoing physical therapy and is expected to recover fully. Weber's return offers rare insight into a pivotal yet misunderstood chapter of Billy Joel's career and personal life.
