Billy Joel is looking back at a fraught period in his friendship with fellow pianist and longtime tour partner Elton John.
In the second installment of the new two-part HBO documentary Billy Joel: And So It Goes, the five-time Grammy winner revealed that he was really hurt after John claimed that he should go back to rehab to seek treatment for his drinking in a 2011 Rolling Stone cover story.
“Elton had made a comment that he thought I needed real rehab,” Joel recalled. “He trucked it up to, ‘Oh, he’s a drunk.’ And that really hurt me. I said, ‘Wait a minute, don’t you know me better than that?'”
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(L-R): Jon Bon Jovi, Paul Simon, Billy Joel, Elton John, and Sting perform at a Rainforest Foundation International benefit concert at Carnegie Hall in New York
He then admitted, “And there was bad blood for a little while.”
John and Joel first joined forces for their Face to Face tour, which they took out on the road repeatedly between 1994 and 2010. Speaking to Rolling Stone in 2011, John claimed that he and Joel had to cancel many more tours “because of illness and various other things,” including Joel’s “alcoholism.”
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“He’s going to hate me for this, but every time he goes to rehab they’ve been light,” John told the outlet. “When I went to rehab, I had to clean the floors. He goes to rehab where they have TVs.”
The “Bennie and the Jets” singer continued, “I love you, Billy, and this is tough love. Billy, you have your demons and you’re not going to get rid of them at rehab light. You’ve got to be serious. People adore you. They love you and respect you. You should be able to do something better than what you’re doing now.”
Joel responded to John’s remarks afterward in a statement to Rolling Stone. “I’ve worked with Elton for such a long time, and I’ve enjoyed our relationship too much to let something as random as these comments change my affection for him,” he said. “Elton is just being Elton.”
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Elton John and Billy Joel perform at Nationals Park in Washington, D.C., in 2009
Still, Joel recalled in the new documentary, John’s comments coincided with “a dovetailing of things” that left him feeling absolutely “clobbered” in the public eye.
“That was rock bottom,” he said. “I was disillusioned with what I thought it was all supposed to mean. It was like all the signs were pointing to me: enough.”
Billy Joel: And So It Goes is streaming now in full on HBO Max.
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