How Billy Joel went broke
The endless puns in the headlines didn’t help when Billy Joel lost tens of millions. “Money can give you a heart attack-ack-ack-ack-ack” wrote some, while others riffed on the lyrics from ‘Honesty’. The joke was that Joel had trusted his former manager, the godfather to his daughter no less, to balance his books. His good faith belief in Frank Weber resulted in a bitter fraud case, suing and counter-suing, and a whole lot of lost money.
In 1989, he sued Weber for $90million, citing fraud and breach of financial duties. The chief complaint was that Weber had allegedly spent upwards of $10million on investments into his own companies and shelled out a further $2.5million on loans. Joel alleged Weber doled out these loans to businesses he controlled as well as horse-breeding farms and hotels.
One major complication was Joel’s close connection to Weber. The suit came only a few years after Joel divorced Weber’s sister, Elizabeth. Strangely, it was only after the divorce that Joel decided to hire an ex-in-law as his financial manager. While blindly trusting Weber, it was said he had been doubling Joel’s rates for music videos, skimming from travel expenses, and skewing documents that would alert Joel to all the nefarious money moving.
Joel later reflected on his careless financial moves, explaining that he intentionally stayed away from the money side. “For a long time, I was overly sensitive to this accusation that I was a hitmaker-meister just grinding it out for the money,” he said. “So I proved I wasn’t doing it for the money because I didn’t know nothing about my money, and that way, I’d know that I had integrity.”
Joel felt confident his attorney, Leonard M. Marks, would recover the money because Marks had represented the likes of the Bee Gees and Bruce Springsteen in similar cases. Marks said Joel’s case was the worst he’d ever seen, telling People: “Often a manager will let the power that comes from associating with a megastar go to his head. It can lead to all kinds of abuse.”
In turn, Weber’s attorney, Daniel A. Gecker, made his case. “This whole thing is an effort to avoid paying Frank royalties on the upcoming LP and tour, which are due under the management contract,” he said. “The only grounds upon which the contract can be broken are to claim fraud, hence these accusations.”
Despite Joel’s confidence in Marks, the case did not go his way, and the $90million in damages never materialised. Weber promptly filed for bankruptcy, ultimately settling the case out of court. Joel reportedly walked away with around $8million, which, in music industry terms, is a considerable loss. In another twist, Weber sued Joel for $30million, which was just as fruitful as Joel’s initial attempt to sue him.
