Billy Joel on his new documentary: ‘I didn’t hate it, which … is the real compliment’

Billy Joel admits he was a reluctant subject when it comes to the HBO documentary And So It Goes.

In a new cover story for People, Billy says, “I’ve resisted this kind of thing for so long. I’m sick of talking about myself.”

He notes, “My goal was to get it over with. When I do interviews, people just ask you about yourself and you get a little self-conscious about it eventually. It’s almost embarrassing.”

“I was worried, maybe I’m going to hate this thing, because it’s a lot to ask of somebody, a lifetime of work,” he says of the documentary. “[But] at the end, I didn’t hate it, which, to me, is the real compliment.”

In fact, he shares, “There was some stuff I found out about myself. There was some self-revelatory stuff.” For example, Billy says the doc’s co-director Susan Lacy helped him realize that “a lot of the things I was searching for were my father in my life, and I recognized that in the documentary.” 

Billy’s father, Howard Joel, left the family when Billy was 8 years old and moved to Austria, which inspired Billy’s song “Vienna.” The two reconnected years later. 

Part two of And So It Goes debuts on Friday.

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