Billy Joel's Foolish Suicide Attempt

The desperate Piano Man star tried to end it all after the failure of his band Atilla's first album and the break-up of a romance - and so he raided his mother's cupboards, looking for poison.

He tells Details magazine, "I was suicidal.... I just figured the world didn't need another failed musician. You take yourself so seriously - you've got your head so far up your ass you can't see straight.

"I was just lookin' for poison. I looked in my mother's closet and there was bleach, and it had the skull and crossbones, and then there was furniture polish.

"At the time I thought, `Well, the furniture polish will probably taste better than the bleach, so I'll drink the furniture polish.'

"All I ended up doing was farting furniture polish for a couple of days and polishing my mother's chairs."