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\nBilly Joel reveals in the new HBO documentary Billy Joel: And So It Goes that then-wife Katie Lee gave him an “ultimatum” to go to rehabHe checked into the Betty Ford Center in 2005Joel said in 2023 that he no longer drinks<\/p>\n
When Billy Joel<\/a> entered rehab in 2005, it was at the behest of his then-wife Katie Lee<\/a>.\n<\/p>\n The legendary musician opens up about his struggles with alcohol abuse in the new HBO documentary Billy Joel: And So It Goes<\/a> \u2014 and reveals that Lee, to whom he was married for five years, gave him something of an \u201cultimatum\u201d to either seek help or end their relationship.\n<\/p>\n \u201c\u2018Either you do something about your drinking or this isn\u2019t gonna work out,\u2019\u201d Joel, 76, recalls his then-wife telling him. \u201cAt that point, yeah, the relationship wasn\u2019t doing well.\u201d\n<\/p>\n The \u201cPiano Man\u201d singer ultimately checked into the Betty Ford Center, but admits that it was somewhat against his will.\n<\/p>\n \u201cWith the rehab, you don\u2019t go for somebody else. You have to go for yourself. You have to want to do it,\u201d he says in the film. \u201cI didn\u2019t want to do it.\u201d\n<\/p>\n Billy Joel is presented with the Key to the City of New York backstage before the last show of his residency at Madison Square Garden on July 25, 2024 in New York City.<\/p>\n Kevin Mazur\/Getty<\/p>\n Joel and Lee, 43, married in 2004. At the time, Joel had taken a break from touring, and was living life largely out of the spotlight.\n<\/p>\n \u201cI felt like he needed to be creating, he needed to be making music, performing, to turn down that anxiety of not having an artistic outlet,\u201d she says in the doc. \u201cAnd there were struggles with addiction. It was really hard to navigate that, because I had no experience with it.\u201d\n<\/p>\n The Kitchen host says that when Joel returned from rehab, it was a \u201cfragile time\u201d in their relationship, and she believes that he felt \u201ca little bit of resentment\u201d that she\u2019d pushed him to seek treatment (Joel\u2019s second wife, Christie Brinkley<\/a>, also notes in the film that his alcohol abuse contributed to the breakdown of their marriage).\n<\/p>\n \u201cIn a lot of ways it was hard to recover from that,\u201d Lee says in the film, adding that they were also on different pages when it came to how often they went out versus how often they stayed in. \u201cI don\u2019t think either of us wanted it to not work out, but it just became obvious that it wasn\u2019t working.\u201d\n<\/p>\n Lee and Joel divorced in 2009, and the rocker went on to marry Alexis Roderick<\/a> in 2015. They\u2019re parents to daughters Della, 9, and Remy, 7<\/a>, while Joel is also dad to Alexa Ray<\/a>, 39, with Brinkley. Lee, meanwhile, married Ryan Biegel in 2018.\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n In a 2023 interview with the Los Angeles Times<\/a>, Joel said he no longer drinks alcohol.\n<\/p>\n \u201cI stopped a couple of years ago. It wasn\u2019t a big AA kick. I just got a point where I\u2019d had enough,\u201d he said. \u201cI didn\u2019t enjoy being completely inebriated, and it probably created more problems in my life than I needed. I don\u2019t need it now.\u201d\n<\/p>\n And So It Goes is an intimate peek at Joel\u2019s private life, as told through his prolific song catalog. Joel admitted to PEOPLE in this week\u2019s cover story that he was reluctant to speak so plainly<\/a> about such personal matters, but ultimately left the project having learned \u201csome self-revelatory stuff.\u201d\n<\/p>\n