Billy Joel’s Stepson Reveals How He Healed Relationship After ‘Complicated’ Past (Exclusive)

Billy Joel’s former stepson is opening up for the first time. 

Sean Weber-Small, whose mother Elizabeth Weber is the Grammy-winner’s first wife and early career manager, appears in the upcoming documentary Billy Joel: And So It Goes which chronicles the Piano Man’s life and career. Part one of the documentary premiered at the 2025 Tribeca Festival opening night at the Beacon Theatre in New York City on June 4.

Ahead of the screening, Weber-Small told PEOPLE how it felt to revisit the early years of life and why he waited until now to do so publicly. 

“My mother and I have been silent about any of our time with Billy since really 1983,” Weber-Small says. “And when she split and we left, we kind of went into witness relocation… also those memories we had, they were ours. So I’ve kind of felt like by talking about them, it would kind of cheapen them somehow, if that makes any weird sense.”

His mother and Joel first started seeing each other while Elizabeth was still married to Jon Small, Sean’s father and Joel’s best friend and bandmate.

“Billy was there the night I was born,” Jon says. 

Once Joel and Weber’s marriage officially dissolved, Weber-Small says his relationship with his stepfather, whom he described as a “bit of a conspiratorial uncle,” became “more complicated.”

“Billy was always really clear that I had a dad. He wasn’t my dad. But when you’re with somebody and a little person, you’re trying to discipline them or teach them stuff. You have some authority,” he explains. “But… we were always getting into trouble. So when I met up with him later, it was kind of a continuation of that. It was kind of trouble and looking for have fun and play music and things like that.”

Over the years, Weber-Small says that he and Joel would see each other if they found themselves in close proximity: “When I would come to New York and if I was on the island, I would see him…if he was playing when I was in grad school in Madison, Wisconsin, I saw him a few times.”

Otherwise, the two kept in touch through phone calls and emails.  

“We’ve written a lot of emails over the years, which has been nice,” he says. 

Looking back at his early memories shared with Joel, and exploring them through the film, has been “healing,” Weber-Small says.

“Even a lot of the people that are here tonight, seeing everybody, there’s shared universality in our experiences that a lot of us didn’t realize until now,” he says, referring to his mother and some of Joel’s bandmates from the early days that are also featured in the film.

“Different kind of feelings of when the big show rolls on and you’re not on the bus anymore, that’s something. And for a while, I might’ve been one of the first, but over time it’s been other people. And so to be able to reconnect with those folks has been definitely healing and fun. And I think the movie, one of the themes in it was a gang; it was a group of people that were together during this period that were very tight. So it’s good to see them again.”

And while he admits that it’s “weird” knowing his family’s story will be out in the world through the documentary, he is excited that his mother is getting “her due.”

“My mom didn’t get her due for a long time and kept her mouth shut, and kind of, in my opinion, took the high road. So people are going to get to hear her story and our story. And I think that’s really exciting,” he says. 

Adding, “And frankly, it’s kind of going to be neat to have people maybe come up and ask me specific questions instead of the general, ‘Hey, what was it like to grow up with Billy Joel?’”

Billy Joel: And So It Goes is slated to hit HBO in July.