In his new\u00a0two-part documentary\u00a0Billy Joel: And So It Goes on HBO Max, the “Uptown Girl” singer recalled getting treatment for alcohol abuse at the Betty Ford Center in 2005.<\/p>\n
It was only after his wife at the time — chef and cookbook author Katie Lee — gave him an “ultimatum.”<\/p>\n
“‘Either you do something about your drinking or this isn’t gonna work out,'” he recalled her saying.<\/p>\n
After Joel returned home from rehab, unfortunately, their marriage was in a “very fragile” state.<\/p>\n
“She became very career-oriented and she wanted to be in the city — she wanted to socialize,” he recalled in the doc. “There’s a theory that she was having an affair with some guy. That’s a bunch of bulls—. We just drifted apart from each other.”<\/p>\n
He also added that he wasn’t “doing well.”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n Christie Brinkley Reveals Drunken Billy Joel Moment She Almost Didn’t Include In Memoir<\/p>\n View Story\n <\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n The pair had a substantial age difference at the time they got married; she was 23 while the singer was 55. Lee admitted that the age difference became a factor in going their separate ways.<\/p>\n “I wanted to be doing all of the things together, but I think that’s where our age came into play,” she confessed. “Also, I think that there was maybe always a little resentment that I had really pushed him to go to Betty Ford.”<\/p>\n Lee also recalled the moment the pair first discussed getting a divorce.<\/p>\n “I don’t think either one of us wanted it to not work out, but it just became obvious that it wasn’t working,” she said. “And I remember one night we had dinner and I said, ‘Bill, I’m unhappy.’ And he said, ‘Do you wanna get a divorce?’ And I said, ‘Yeah,’ and he said, ‘Okay.’ And that was it.”<\/p>\n The couple ultimately went their separate ways in 2009 after five years of marriage.\u00a0<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Madonna and Elton John ‘Finally Buried the Hatchet’ After She ‘Confronted’ Him at SNL<\/p>\n View Story\n <\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n Lee wasn’t the only person who voiced their concern for the “Piano Man” singer’s health.<\/p>\n In the second installment of the HBO documentary, the five-time Grammy winner opened up about Elton John <\/a>making a comment about his drinking in a 2011\u00a0Rolling Stone\u00a0cover story<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n “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?'”<\/p>\n “And there was bad blood for a little while,” he admitted about his relationship with John.<\/p>\n John’s comments compared his own time in rehab to Joel’s stints, calling Joel’s “light.”<\/p>\n “He’s going to hate me for this, but every time he goes to rehab they’ve been light,” John told the outlet at the time. “When I went to rehab, I had to clean the floors. He goes to rehab where they have TVs.”<\/p>\n Christie Brinkley<\/a>\u00a0— another ex-wife of Joel — has previously shared her experiences with Joel’s drinking in her memoir,\u00a0Uptown Girl<\/a>.<\/p>\n Read more about it here.<\/a><\/p>\n![](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/3f80c439017946baa623953558fae00f_xs.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/9b782be742434b0bae16528c445da32d_xs.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
![](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/cd13bb1d2719401bb11c86fa02cc1f18_md.jpg\")
<\/p>\n