Christie Brinkley revealed Billy Joel would go ‘missing for days’ during their marriage.
The 71-year-old model opened up about her past romance with her second husband Billy Joel, 75, and how their relationship unraveled in the nineties.
In her new memoir Uptown Girl, which she even named after the 1983 hit song that he famously wrote about her, she said that their marital woes was majorly due to his drinking.
Reflecting on their time together, the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit alum, who has been married four times, she said their marriage was ‘really wonderful,’ per Page Six.
She called the Piano Man her ‘soulmate’ but said that they started having marriage problems when he would disappear for days while he was on a bender.
The former couple — who share a daughter, singer Alexa Ray, now 39 — tied the knot 1985 but ended up divorcing in 1994.
Christie Brinkley revealed Billy Joel would go ‘missing for days’ during their marriage; pictured May 2023 in New York City
The 71-year-old model opened up about her past romance with her second husband Billy Joel, 75, and how their relationship unraveled in the nineties; pictured June 2011 in New York City
‘If there wasn’t that issue,’ she said about his addiction. ‘I do think that we were probably really soulmates. It was an amazing time of my life.’
She continued: ‘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.’
Brinkley claimed that once he left their daughter Alexa Ray’s fifth birthday party and was missing for two days.
She said she had ‘visions of his car wrapped around a tree’ and she experienced a ‘panic I couldn’t shake.’
She also recalled how he once vanished during Thanksgiving dinner and another time she saw photos of him out with an Australian actress after a separate disappearance.
When he reemerged that time, she said she locked him out of their hotel room in Hawaii.
Brinkley said he was ‘visibly and audibly drunk’ and had thrown a chaise lounge through patio doors, shattering the glass everywhere.
She explained that the tipping point was watching him be ‘delusional’ once with his band, which prompted her to ask for a divorce the following day.
She called him her ‘soulmate’ but said that they started having marriage problems when he would disappear for days while he was on a bender; pictured 1990 in New York City
The former couple — who share a daughter, singer Alexa Ray, now 39 — tied the knot 1985 but ended up divorcing in 1994; pictured 1983 in New York City
She recalled him hosting his band at their East Hamptons home for a rehearsal but got so drunk that he accused them of eating his pasta, which he had eaten himself.
‘He was acting delusional in a way I’d never seen before,’ she recalled.
‘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.’
However, she explained that ‘the drinking was bigger than the both of us.’
Brinkley wrote in her memoir: ‘Booze was the other woman and it was beginning to seem that he preferred to be with her rather than me.
‘He’s the father of my firstborn and we spent such great formative years together. And I’ll love him forever,’ she added.
‘Things just reached a point where I knew I couldn’t live with him.’
Brinkley explained that before writing her book, she received his blessing.
‘If there wasn’t that issue,’ she said about his addiction. ‘I do think that we were probably really soulmates. It was an amazing time of my life’; pictured May 2024 in New York City
‘To be clear, I never wanted to end things with Billy,’ she wrote. However, she explained that ‘the drinking was bigger than the both of us’; pictured December 1990 in New York City
Brinkley explained that before writing her book, she received his blessing. The pair are now close friends; pictured with daughter Alexa Ray Joel in April 2010
‘Billy said, “Go ahead and tell your story… the good, the bad, whatever you need to say,’ she shared.
‘Leaving Billy wasn’t easy for me to do — and it’s not easy to say anything bad about somebody that I hold in such high regard … [although] I don’t think it’s bad.’
She continued: ‘When you’re in the throes of a drinking addiction, you don’t remember what you did. You wake up the next day and it’s the person who is counting on you who knows what happened.
‘And it’s brave of Billy to say to people around him, “You can speak freely, tell your story.” And I think that’s part of his recovery.’
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