Billy Joel sets the record straight on whether he’s had multiple DUIs

By Lisa Respers France, CNN

(CNN) — Billy Joel has had a few car accidents, but not for the reason many people have believed.

In his HBO documentary “Billy Joel: And So It Goes” the 76-year-old seeks to clear up consistent speculation that he has been arrested multiple times for driving under the influence. (HBO is owned by CNN’s parent company.)

In 2002, Joel crashed a car in East Hampton, New York and less than a year later, he drove into a tree in Sag Harbor which resulted in him having to be airlifted to the hospital. Two years later he crashed into a house in Long Island.

The car accidents have been attributed to road conditions and Joel’s depressive mental state, and while he has been in rehab before, the singer maintains that he has never gotten a DUI.

“You know, along with fame comes a lot of gossip, rumors. I didn’t like the tabloid kind of press,” he said in the documentary. “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.””

Joel went into rehab at the Betty Ford Center in 2005 after he said he was given an “ultimatum” by his then-wife, Katie Lee.

He discussed it in 2013 with the New York Times Magazine, but at that time he again denied ever having a DUI.

“I went to rehab in ’05 because, when I was with Katie, she said, ‘You’re drinking way too much.’ I never had a DUI in my life. That’s another fallacy. Look at the police records.”

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