Billy Joel was living every musician’s nightmare without even knowing it. Despite being one of the biggest music artists of all time, the Grammy winner had virtually no financial proof to show for his success.
In Joel’s new two-part HBO documentary Billy Joel: And So It Goes, the music legend reveals how he discovered his former manager Frank Weber had allegedly been living it up on his dime while Joel remained oblivious.
The first warning signs came during a trip to Maine with then-wife Christie Brinkley. As they drove along the coast, locals kept approaching them, convinced that Joel owned various luxury assets in the area — from expensive horses to sprawling properties.
Brinkley, 71, immediately sensed something was wrong. Weber, who was the brother of Joel’s first wife Elizabeth Weber and had taken over his management, was displaying a lifestyle that didn’t add up.
“I thought, ‘Wow, he’s flying everywhere on, like, a private jet. He’s buying racehorses galore, and everybody thinks we own property near them. Something’s not right here.’ I said to Billy, ‘Frank Weber’s ripping you off.’ And he did not want to hear that,” she said in the film. “Frank had become like a confidante, a trusted advisor.”
Joel initially resisted Brinkley’s suspicions, but reality hit hard when he tried to renovate a home and couldn’t access the funds he expected to have. “People in the music business that I knew were telling me, ‘You shouldn’t have a problem coming up with the money to do this. You just had all these hit records. Where’s all your money?’ And I didn’t have an answer for that,” he recalled.
The confusion forced Joel to take action. He authorized a financial audit that would reveal the scope of the alleged betrayal. “I found out I didn’t have any of the money I should have,” explained Joel. “It hit me like a ton of bricks.”
Joel not only discovered his missing millions but also owed the IRS $5 million — money he didn’t have. Eventually, Joel filed a $90 million lawsuit against Weber in 1989 for fraud and breach of contract.
“I didn’t have the money I thought I have, and it was devastating. It was an emotional shock,” he exclaimed. “If I can’t trust this guy to look after my best interest, how stupid was I? How naive could I have been?”
The “Piano Man” faced a harsh reality — at the height of his career, he had to start over. “It was a very depressing thing. When I found out that my money was pretty well-spent, I was furious. I realized I gotta start all over again. I gotta go right back to writing new songs, recording new songs and go out on the road and try to make that money back.”
The pressure extended beyond finances into his personal life. “I was worried about, ‘This is not gonna be good for my marriage.’ This is not gonna be good for my relationship with my daughter. But I had no choice. I had to go out and make a living,” he said.
While Joel and Weber ultimately settled, the experience transformed how the music legend approached his career. “I needed to protect these songs. These were my children. They were orphans until I asserted my parenthood of them. So I took over my management and I never looked back.”