The book is out on April 29 . In People’s excerpts published Wednesday, the 71-year-old model blamed the singer’s drinking for their divorce. (NYP report)
“To be clear, I never wanted to.
Christie Brinkley and Billy Joel maintain a “great” friendship nearly 31 years after their divorce. end things with Billy. But his drinking was bigger than the both of us,” she said.
Brinkley also told the outlet, “In the end, when the relationship isn’t functioning the way you want it to be anymore — that’s the worst kind of loneliness because you just can’t make it work together and that’s painful.”
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Brinkley and Joel, 75, were married from 1985 to 1994, and have a daughter, Alexa Ray Joel, 39, who has a singing career of her own.
Joel struggled with alcoholism for many years. He went to rehab for the first time in 1992 and got sober, but returned to rehab in 2005 after he relapsed.
In 2023, Joel told the Los Angeles Times that he stopped drinking “a couple of years ago.”
“It wasn’t a big AA kick. I just got to a point where I’d had enough,” he said. “I didn’t enjoy being completely inebriated, and it probably created more problems in my life than I needed.”
When asked if he ever has an “instinct” to drink after a show, Joel said, “I don’t need it now. I used to get offstage and be so wound up and adrenalized that I needed something to calm down to go to sleep. But I realized when you’re drinking yourself to sleep, you’re not really sleeping. You’re just passing out.”
After her divorce from Joel, Brinkley had two more marriages, one to Colorado real estate developer Ricky Taubman, and another to architect Peter Cook, that both ended in divorce. Brinkley welcomed son Jack, 29, with Taubman and daughter Sailor, 26, with Cook.
Brinkley also reflected on her and Joel’s dynamic when they started dating. “We laughed like you couldn’t believe. But also he was so sensitive and he did all the old-fashioned things, the flowers, the notes and the poems and the songs,” she said.
“He was going into the recording studio and he was writing all these songs and saying ‘This one’s for you.’ How could I not fall in love with him?” Brinkley added.
