Billy Joel Says There Was ‘Bad Blood’ After Elton John Suggested He Go to Rehab: ‘That Really Hurt Me’

Billy Joel says there was once “bad blood” between him and Elton John.

In the second part of a new two-part HBO documentary Billy Joel: And So It Goes, the “Piano Man” singer opens up about how the “Your Song” musician’s public declaration that he needed rehab caused tension between them.

“Elton had made a comment that he thought I needed real rehab,” Joel, 76, says in the film, referring to an interview John did with Rolling Stone in 2011. “He chalked it up to, ‘Oh, he’s a drunk.’ And that really hurt me.”

He continues: “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 and John, 78, are longtime friends and tourmates. Though Joel says in the first part of the film that he once “resented” the comparisons between the two stars, he eventually grew to embrace it, and they toured together on their Face to Face tour starting in 1994.

They were fresh off a 2010 leg of their joint tour when John told Rolling Stone that they’d had “so many cancelled tours because of illnesses and various other things, 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, who went to rehab in 2005.

Joel notes in the doc that John’s comments made him feel “clobbered” and it was “rock bottom” for him.

“I was disillusioned with what I thought it was all supposed to mean,” he says. “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 previously entered rehab at the Betty Ford Center in 2005 as part of an “ultimatum” given to him by then-wife Katie Lee. (They split in 2009 after five years of marriage.)

Following his stint at the clinic, the “Vienna” performer took a step back from the spotlight and stopped touring.

In 2023, Joel told the Los Angeles Times that he quit drinking “a couple of years ago.”

“I stopped a couple of years ago,” he told the outlet. “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.”

The second part of the doc. Billy Joel: And So It Goes will premiere on July 25.