Billy Joel and Elton John have always had a complicated friendship. In his new documentary, Billy Joel: And So It Goes, the singer opens up about the first comment that caused this early tension.
In the second episode of the new HBO documentary Billy Joel: And So It Goes, the singer reminisces about his friendship with John and explains how it initially soured.
“Elton had made a comment that he thought I needed real rehab,” Joel revealed in the film. “He chalked it up to, ‘Oh, he’s a drunk.’ And that really hurt me.”
In 2011, John spoke to Rolling Stone and criticised Joel’s attempts to quit drinking, which struck an off-chord with Joel. He said, “When I went to rehab, I had to clean the floors. He goes to rehab where they have TVs. 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.”
The ‘Rocket Man’ singer continued at that time, “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 looked back at how he initially reacted to hearing these comments. Over a decade ago, he said to himself, “Wait a minute. Don’t you know me better than that?” Following the interview, he admitted, “There was bad blood for a little while. There was a dovetailing of things that happened during that time.”
He continued in the documentary, “I was disillusioned with what I thought it was all supposed to mean. It was like all the signs were pointing to me: Enough. And I wrote this letter to the band. ‘I don’t want to do this anymore. I’m gonna stop.”
The singer-songwriter is now two years sober after two early stints in rehab, in 2002 at Connecticut’s Silver Hill Hospital and in 2005 at New York City’s Betty Ford Centre.
Elsewhere in the documentary, the star opened up about his feud with Donald Trump, which came about in 2017 after Trump made comments that forgave and made excuses for neo-Nazis at his rallies.
The documentary’s release came at a tragic time in Joel’s career. He recently missed the project’s premiere, which opened the Tribeca Film Festival on June 4th in New York. The premiere arrived merely weeks after Joel shared that he’d been diagnosed with the brain disorder, Normal Pressure Hydrocephalus (NPH). As a result of his health issues, all of his future concerts and live appearances have been cancelled.
The two parts of And So It Goes streamed on July 18th and July 25th in the US on HBO Max. There is no confirmed UK release date.
