Billy Joel’s Family: All About His Parents and Siblings (Including One Who Is Also a Famous Musician!)

Billy Joel has written some of the biggest hits of his generation, some of which were inspired by his family.

The “Piano Man” singer was raised by his parents — mom Rosalind and dad Howard — in New York. He grew up alongside his sister, Judy, and later learned he had a half-brother, Alexander.

In the HBO documentary Billy Joel: And So It Goes, the music legend opens up about his family life, from his complicated relationship with his father to the support he received from his mother, whom he described as his “cheerleader.”

“Mom said anything you set your mind out to do you can do,” he said. “I credit my mom with sticking with me, she never gave up. She was a believer.”

Billy’s childhood wasn’t without hardship, as his parents’ divorce marked a difficult chapter in his early life. However, as his sister Judy explained in the documentary, the challenges they faced brought the siblings closer together.

“We felt each other’s pain and worry, and we would get strength from each other,” she said. “We were very close … we had to be.”

Here’s everything to know about Billy Joel’s family, including his parents and siblings.

Billy was born and raised in New York

Billy was welcomed by his parents, Rosalind and Howard, on May 9, 1949, in the Bronx, N.Y., per The Kennedy Center. He was then raised in Long Island, N.Y.

As Billy shared with the U.K.’s The Times in August 2019, his parents met in New York when they both appeared in Gilbert and Sullivan. Per his website, they wed in 1946.

According to USA Today, Billy’s father died in 2011. Meanwhile, per an obituary on his website, Billy’s mother died on July 13, 2014.

His parents split when Billy was 8 years old

Rosalind and Howard divorced in 1957, when Billy was 8 years old. In the documentary, Billy said he had no childhood memories of his parents “having fun” together as a couple.

“I saw stuff with them when I was a little kid that was not good, things were very tense between them,” he said, noting that he and his sister were “kind of relieved” when they went their separate ways.

Billy told The Times that he grew distant from his dad after the split. “I knew he’d gone to live in Vienna, but I didn’t know if he was dead or alive,” he said.

Billy and his sister were then raised by their mother. In the HBO documentary, Judy said that Howard leaving was “a relief in that my mother felt more free,” but it gave her “more stress in that she had to then work very, very hard to keep the family going.”

He has one sister and a half-brother

Billy was raised alongside his sister, Judy. Per his website, Judy is the daughter of Rosalind’s late sister and was adopted by the Joel family. In 1973, when Billy went to Vienna to see his father, he met Howard’s new wife and learned they had a baby son, Alexander.

Alexander told The Times that although they didn’t see each other growing up, “the amazing thing” is how “similar” he and his half-brother are.

“When he moves, he moves like me,” Alexander said. “The same hand gestures and facial expressions, the same dark sense of humour. The ability to be able to laugh at anything, even the bad stuff.”

His family is musically talented

Billy isn’t the only musician in the family; his father, Howard, was a classical pianist, and his half-brother is a well-known conductor.

As Billy told The Times, Alexander has been musically inclined from a young age.

“I only met Alex a few times when he was growing up, but it was obvious that he had this music ‘thing,’ ” Billy said. “Music gets in your DNA. Alex was going to see operas when he was five.”

Alexander went on to become a successful classical music composer who has conducted at the famed Royal Opera House.

“When I go to see him perform, nobody’s interested in me, I’m just Alex’s brother,” Billy said.

In 1995, Howard and Alexander joined Billy onstage at a concert in Nuremberg, Germany.

Billy had a complicated relationship with his father

In And So It Goes, Billy’s sister Judy claimed that their father “never really showed Bill kindness and compassion and understanding towards his talent” growing up.

Elsewhere in the film, the “Vienna” singer recalled a memory of himself at 8 years old, when he went downstairs and “got whacked” by his father.

“I got whacked so hard he knocked me out, I was unconscious for like a minute. And I remember waking up going, ‘Well, that got his attention,’ and that was my memory of his piano lessons,” he said. “So, he didn’t teach me much.”

Billy described his father to The Times as “troubled,” but told the outlet that he “began to understand” him better after he left the family. By then, Billy began learning more about his upbringing. Howard enlisted in the U.S. Army during which time he “fought the Nazis” and ended up “attacking” his hometown, Nuremberg.

“This guy was depressed,” Billy said. “Traumatised by what had happened in his life. No wonder things didn’t work out for my parents.”

Billy wrote a song about his mom

Among Billy’s many classics is a special song written about his mom. “Rosalinda’s Eyes” is a tribute to her, based on their family history, per his site.

The song was released in 1978 as part of his Grammy-winning album, 52nd Street.

Following Rosalind’s death in 2014, Billy’s ex-wife Christie Brinkley shared a heartfelt tribute to her on Instagram, where she also touched on how the song (and Rosalind’s grandchildren) will help carry on her legacy.

“Rosalind’s Eyes will live on not only in the song inspired by her, but in Billy, and Alexa… and Nanny Roz herself would find that worth celebrating,” Brinkley wrote.

Billy’s mom “knew he was going to be something someday”

In the documentary, Billy described his mother Rosalind as “a very loving woman,” adding that he felt “almost smothered” by her affection.

“I think it was to try to compensate for my dad’s lack of it,” Billy said, noting that there were also “some troubling things about her.”

“She was very isolated. She was lonely a lot, and I think she drank to assuage her loneliness,” he continued.

Judy added that she was “most likely bipolar,” explaining that there “wasn’t peace because we knew we had to walk on eggshells, that anything could throw her off.”

However, Billy and Judy acknowledged that Rosalind was always doing her best as a mother.

“No matter how poor we were at the time or how hard she had to work — Mom, she knew that Billy had to have piano lessons,” Judy said. “That this had to be nurtured. She knew that he was going to be something someday.”