Billy Joel's first wife breaks silence on their marriage as she takes starring role in his new HBO doc
Billy Joel 's elusive first ex-wife Elizabeth Ann Weber broke her silence on their eight-year marriage - 43 years after their divorce - while attending the Tribeca premiere of his film And So It Goes in Manhattan on Wednesday.
The silver-haired muse has a starring role in the first part of Susan Lacy and Jessica Levin's two-part documentary about the 76-year-old singer, which premieres next month on HBO Max.
'It was great then, it's great whenever I think about it, and it's great now [to revisit],' Elizabeth reflected to People.
'Susan approached me in a very personal way, and it resonated with me, and Billy licensed the music, so I knew that there would be good music. So it felt right — and it still does.'
Weber also credited her granddaughters and 'close friend' - executive producer Steve Cohen - with convincing her to disrupt her 'really nice' private life to be featured in And So It Goes.
'She's been maligned incredibly in the blogosphere,' Cohen noted.
The silver-haired muse has a starring role in the first part of Susan Lacy and Jessica Levin's two-part documentary about the 76-year-old singer, which premieres next month on HBO Max
The native New Yorker walked the blue carpet at the Beacon Theatre with her 59-year-old son Sean Small, whom she welcomed during her first marriage to Jon Small that famously ended after her affair with his Atilla bandmate Billy.
'I was just in love with a woman,' Joel confessed in the doc. 'And I got punched in the nose [by Jon], which I deserved.'
Elizabeth promptly left both men and the five-time Grammy winner 'was just in a lot of pain' and attempted suicide twice - first with sleeping pills and then by drinking a bottle of furniture polish.
'You can't even do yourself in,' Billy said of his failed attempts.
But Joel's depression over his heartbreak inspired him to write his 1971 debut album, Cold Spring Harbor, featuring the song She's Got a Way inspired by Weber.
'You could tell from the lyrics that he was really in love with Elizabeth,' Small said of his ex-wife in the doc.
Elizabeth soon rekindled her romance with Joel, they married in 1973, and soon after she became his manager that changed his career forever.
According to the Washington Post, when the Bronx-born musician composed Just The Way You Are in honor of Weber's birthday, she shrewdly replied: 'Do I get the publishing too?'
In fact, it was the NYU alum who pushed Billy to choose the 1977 'mushy' ballad as the second single off his fifth studio album The Stranger - which reached No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100, won him two Grammys, and became 'the turning point of my career.'
Elizabeth also inspired Joel's songs The Stranger and She's Always a Woman as well as being mentioned in his 1973 hit Piano Man - she was 'the waitress practicing politics.'
The NYU alum also inspired the Bronx-born musician's songs The Stranger, She's Got a Way, and She's Always a Woman as well as being mentioned in his 1973 hit Piano Man - she was 'the waitress practicing politics'
But Weber tired of the Tony winner's substance abuse and left him as a manager and a wife around the time of his 1982 boozy motorcycle accident, which resulted in him having surgery on his right wrist and left thumb.
'I was amazed that I was still alive,' Billy - who moved on with eighties supermodel Christie Brinkley in 1983 - said in the doc. 'I should've died in that accident.'
Sadly, Joel was unable to attend his own premiere Wednesday due to his recent diagnosis with normal pressure hydrocephalus - a brain disorder which causes hearing, vision, and balance issues.
'He's going to be fine,' co-director Susan Lacy told THR.
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