“I never had a DUI”: Billy Joel blasts false driving under influence indicent rumors 

Billy Joel clears the air on driving under the influence incident rumors. The Piano Man is setting the record straight about the fact that he has received multiple DUIs over the years.

In the second part of the new HBO documentary, Billy Joel: And So It Goes, he stated,

"You know, along with fame comes a lot of gossip, rumors. I didn't like the tabloid kind of press. For example, there's this rumor that I have all these DUIs. That never happened, but people keep repeating the myth: 'Oh, he's got so many DUIs.' I never had a DUI, so f--- you."

He further added, "Well, the press could be mean," Joel said in the documentary. "So having that much attention paid to you is not easy.”

Referring to all the "jokes" and memes that were made about his drinking habits over the years, including the time in 2004 when Saturday Night Live did a sketch where Joel was played by Horatio Sanz, who chugs a bottle of pineapple schnapps and crashes into several walls and mailboxes while driving Tina Fey, Maya Rudolph, Amy Poehler, and host Lindsay Lohan to a Long Island party.

Billy Joel's history with drinking

This is, however, not the first time that Billy Joel has had to defend his actions this way, as in an interview with The New York Times Magazine in 2013, he expressed,

"I had gone through a breakup and was really broken up about it, and I decided, 'I'm drinking too much. I should go to rehab.' But people made a connection, like, 'Oh, he went there because he was in a car accident from drinking.' No."

The "Vienna" singer added, "I never had a DUI in my life. That's another fallacy. Look at the police records."

Allegedly, the legendary singer had been drinking and driving and had gotten involved in a string of car accidents in a short period of time in the early 2000s before entering rehab in 2005. Due to these incidents, rumors started swirling.

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The incidents included a serious crash in East Hampton, New York, in June 2002, followed by the time he swerved off the road and smashed his car into a tree in January 2003, not even a year later. The musician had to be airlifted to a hospital after that. In April 2004, he crashed through a row of bushes and into a Long Island home, but it was reported by a Nassau County police spokeswoman that "no evidence of alcohol or drug involvement" was found in the accident.

This May, Billy Joel also announced cancelling his upcoming tour dates due to suffering from normal pressure hydrocephalus (NPH), which messes with his balance. Though the reason behind his illness is not known, Billy believes it could be because of the heavy drinking he did in the past.

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