Model Christie Brinkley dishes on her former marriage to Piano Man singer Billy Joel in her newly released tell-all book, Uptown Girl. Despite their marriage lasting only nine years, she describes the singer as the love of her life. Their time together was far from perfect, and after more than three decades apart, she is ready to share her side of the story.
Being married to rockstar Billy Joel was never easy for Christie Brinkley. According to Radar Online reports, it seems that Christie spent their years together living in terror. Brinkley reveals in her heartfelt memoir that she spent their marriage fearing for his life.
Christie Brinkley reveals the one thing that tore them apart was Billy Joel’s drinking. She even claims that more than three decades later, she still believes that if it weren’t for his drinking, the two would still be together.
In her memoir, Christie writes that throughout their entire marriage, Billy struggles with alcohol addiction. She reveals that the Only the Good Die Young hitmaker would disappear for days at a time, leaving her to fear the worst. During Joel’s booze benders, Brinkley says she was constantly haunted by visions and nightmares of the singer wrapping his vehicle around a tree.
Billy Joel’s Drinking Destroyed His Marriage To Christie Brinkley
Christie Brinkley details the pain she would feel during his benders. She recalls things became so bad that Billy Joel even disappeared from their daughter Alexa Ray Joel’s fifth birthday party, staying gone for two days.
As time went on, Joel’s drinking worsened, and he began to act erratically and out of control. Brinkley recalls her husband vanishing in the middle of Thanksgiving dinner. Christie claims she locked Billy out of their Hawaiian hotel suite after hearing he was spotted with another woman.
When Joel returned a few days later, Christie claimed he was “visibly and audibly drunk.” He flew into a wild fit of rage, throwing a chair through the patio doors. Joel’s drinking grew even more out of control, and Brinkley reveals she reached her breaking point.
“He was acting delusional in a way I’d never seen before. 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,” Christie writes. It was then she knew it was time to walk away. “Things just reached a point where I knew I couldn’t live with him.”
Christie Brinkley makes it clear in her book that she did everything in her power to help Billy Joel. She writes that she never wanted to end her marriage to Joel. “If there wasn’t that issue … I do think that we were probably really soulmates, it was an amazing time of my life.“
Walking away from Billy Joel was one of the hardest choices Christie Brinkley ever made. Though their marriage may have ended, the connection they built will never truly fade.
