Billy Joel has revealed that there was a time when tensions ran high between him and Elton John, describing their relationship as having “bad blood.”
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In the second installment of the HBO documentary Billy Joel: And So It Goes, the 76-year-old singer reflects on the strain in his relationship with Elton John, sparked by John’s public comments suggesting he needed rehab.
“Elton had made a comment that he thought I needed real rehab,” Joel recalls in the documentary per PEOPLE, referring to a 2011 interview John did with Rolling Stone. “He chalked 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? And there was bad blood for a little while. There was a dovetailing of things that happened during that time,” Joel added.
Billy Joel and Elton John Have Been Tour Mates For Decades
Joel and the 78-year-old John have been longtime friends and tourmates. At the start of the film, Joel says he initially “resented” being compared to the other star. But over time, he embraced it, leading to their “Face to Face” tour in 1994.
Fresh from a 2010 leg of their joint tour, John revealed to Rolling Stone that their history had been marred by canceled tours due to illnesses, various other setbacks, and struggles with alcoholism.
“He’s going to hate me for this, but every time he goes to rehab, they’ve been light… I love you, Billy, and this is tough love,” John said of Joel.
Joel mentions in the documentary that John’s comments left him feeling “clobbered,” describing it as his personal “rock bottom.”
“I was disillusioned with what I thought it was all supposed to mean,” he admitted. “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.'”
Joel first entered rehab at the Betty Ford Center in 2005, following an “ultimatum” from his then-wife, Katie Lee. The couple ultimately parted ways in 2009 after five years of marriage, according to PEOPLE. After his time at the clinic, the singer retreated from the spotlight and paused his touring schedule.
In a 2023 interview with the Los Angeles Times, Joel revealed that he had given up drinking “a couple of years ago.”
“I stopped a couple of years ago,” Joel said at the time. “It wasn’t a big AA kick. I just got to a point where I’d had enough. I didn’t enjoy being completely inebriated, and it probably created more problems in my life than I needed.”
Both parts of Billy Joel: And So It Goes are streaming on HBO MAX.