From the 2002, Joel are once more significantly depressed and you can taking greatly. He had been travel with Elton John, and another evening got a keen onstage crisis during the Garden, randomly yelling aside well-known competition sites: “Bunker Hill! Antietam!” (Last year, John publicly castigated Joel to the their consuming. )
Anywhere between 2002 and you can 2004, Joel got around three automobile accidents on Much time Isle, immediately following smashing into property. He later attributed crappy road lighting, local creatures, his poorly developed Citroen and you will nine/eleven. He checked with the rehabilitation but don’t bought engrossed. “In fact, I like to take in,” Joel advised Schruers. “Either excessively.”
The one brilliant place was Katie Lee, a school girl away from Kansas whom he had obtained when you look at the the latest lobby of your Peninsula Hotel. Immediately following graduating, she gone into the Joel’s house on Hamptons, as well as in 2004, they hitched. Joel was 55, Lee 23 – simply four years avove the age of his daughter, Alexa.
After a stint during the Betty Ford, Lee – herself an aspiring cooking superstar – advised him to acquire back out on the trail, and he first started playing real time again. For the 2008, whenever you are touring which have Elton John, Joel left watching photographs out of Lee at premieres and gallery openings – and one in particular, of her moving closely which have another type of guy on Artwork Basel for the Miami.
As relationship unraveled, Joel held aside guarantee. He told Lee he desired to head to a therapist. She first started speaking of seats. “I realized, ‘It’s not going to occurs. Our company is more than . . . ‘Cause I’m a classic man now, a susceptible guy. Never accomplish that so you can an old man.’ ”