At 71, supermodel, actress, and entrepreneur Christie Brinkley is revisiting the pivotal chapters of her life, including her unforgettable relationship with Billy Joel, a star with one of the most lucrative careers in the US.
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From their first meeting in the Caribbean to their glamorous wedding and shared love for their daughter Alexa Ray, Brinkley has now shed light on the real story behind their marriage and its eventual end.
She shares these reflections in her newly released memoir, Uptown Girl — a title drawn from Joel’s iconic 1983 hit song, which he originally wrote about her.
Life with Billy Joel
Christie Brinkley met Billy Joel, who recently postponed his concerts due to health issues, in 1983 while vacationing in St. Barts. Their encounter was equal parts charming and cinematic, with Joel wooing Brinkley and others by playing piano in a bar.
Despite their early connection forming soon after the tragic death of Brinkley’s then-boyfriend Olivier Chandon, their bond strengthened quickly.
Joel began writing the song ‘Uptown Girl’ while dating Elle Macpherson, but as he fell for Brinkley, the song transformed into a tribute to her. He even cast her in the music video, solidifying her role as the real-life inspiration behind the hit.
The couple married in 1985 aboard a yacht in New York Harbour and soon bought a house on Long Island. Later that year, they welcomed their daughter Alexa Ray. Their glamorous life was filled with travel and music, and Brinkley described it as ‘an amazing time of my life.’ In her memoir, she reflects:
I had so much fun. We were such nomads, gypsies — just between his job and mine, we were seeing the world…it was wonderful, really wonderful.
Yet, behind the fairytale was a reality Brinkley could no longer ignore. According to her memoir and in an interview with Page Six, Joel’s drinking became the couple’s greatest struggle.
The singer would vanish for days at a time, sometimes during family events. One painful moment she recalls is when Joel left Alexa Ray’s fifth birthday party and disappeared. Brinkley wrote that she was consumed with fear, having ‘visions of his car wrapped around a tree’ — ‘a panic I couldn’t shake.’
The final straw came during a band rehearsal at their Hamptons home, where Joel drunkenly accused his bandmates of eating his pasta — pasta that, in fact, he had eaten himself. Brinkley said:
He was acting delusional in a way I’d never seen before.
The next day, she asked for a divorce. Although, she confessed:
To be clear, I never wanted to end things with Billy.
I read every self-help book I could find … we went to see a string of psychiatrists, psychologists and other medical doctors.
But in the end, she concluded:
The drinking was bigger than the both of us. Booze was the other woman and it was beginning to seem that he preferred to be with her rather than me.
Despite the end, Brinkley never lost her affection for him. Their divorce was finalised in 1994, but the details of the settlement and custody arrangements were never made public.
Their relationship today
Despite the painful end to their marriage, Brinkley and Joel have maintained a surprisingly close friendship. She writes with warmth and respect about her ex-husband in the book and told Page Six:
He’s the father of my firstborn and we spent such great formative years together. And I’ll love him forever. Things just reached a point where I knew I couldn’t live with him.
Their bond endures through shared parenting of Alexa Ray, now 39, and mutual appearances at public events. In fact, as reported by InStyle, they have even hosted Christmas carol singalongs together.
Brinkley reveals that she spoke to Joel before writing her memoir. She shared:
Billy said, ‘Go ahead and tell your story… the good, the bad, whatever you need to say.’
Joel himself has acknowledged his struggles with addiction. He entered rehab in 1992 and again in 2005. In a 2023 interview with the Los Angeles Times, he stated that he had stopped drinking ‘a couple of years ago.’
Joel is now married to Alexis Roderick and has two young daughters. Yet, he and Brinkley appear to remain supportive of each other’s lives.
Brinkley’s other marriages and her belief in love
Christie Brinkley has said she had two great loves in her life — Billy Joel and her first husband, French illustrator Jean-François Allaux.
She met Allaux after moving to Paris at 19 to study art and escape a painful breakup. They lived in a tiny apartment before Brinkley was discovered as a model. The pair married in 1975 and divorced in 1981 as Brinkley’s fame skyrocketed.
Her third marriage came in the aftermath of her divorce from Joel and a traumatic helicopter crash. During a trip to Telluride in 1994, she survived a near-death experience alongside real estate developer Ricky Taubman. They married soon after and had a son, Jack, but the union lasted only seven months. According to Brinkley, Taubman asked for $75,000 shortly after they got engaged and had ‘borrowed’ $2 million by the end of their marriage. She wrote:
It was user-ship, manipulation at its worst, emotional torture.
Her fourth marriage, to architect Peter Cook in 1996, brought her daughter Sailor. This relationship, too, ended in scandal when Brinkley discovered Cook had been having an affair with a teenager. Their six-year custody battle made headlines, and Brinkley later recalled:
Even my divorce lawyer told me I had bad taste in husbands.
Reflecting on her pattern of relationships after Billy, Brinkley said:
I think I was reeling from losing Billy and and I was thinking Billy is going to come riding into town any second and go ‘I can’t lose you.’
Adding:
I didn’t take time to stop and reflect and learn.
Despite the heartbreak, Brinkley maintains a positive outlook. She told People:
I still believe in love
Love is something that you have to cherish while you have it and nurture it, but you can’t hang onto it and you can’t change it or mold it to your desires.
Brinkley also revealed what a forensic psychiatrist once told her during her divorce from Cook: that he didn’t think she would ever be able to fall in love again or trust anybody.
Because to go from the experience I’d had with my [biological] father and the other things that had happened in my life, he thought it was just way too much so that’s probably why I’m not with anybody now but that’s not to say there’s not some miracle guy out there – but it’s okay if it doesn’t happen.
Still, she remains hopeful. Asked if she would marry again, Brinkley replied:
Never say never … I mean, [dates are] very much fewer and far between nowadays. And I’m very, very content and happy doing my own thing, which I think is also necessary before you have another relationship. But, you know we’ll see, you never know.
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Sources used:
Page Six: Christie Brinkley had to leave Billy Joel after he went missing for days: ‘I’ll love him forever … but I couldn’t live with him’
InStyle: Christie Brinkley and Billy Joel's Relationship Timeline: A Look Back
Hello! Magazine: Billy Joel's four marriages and blended family at 74, including exes Christie Brinkley and more
People: After Four Marriages Christie Brinkley Says ‘I Still Believe in Love’ (Exclusive)
