When Billy Joel started dating Christie Brinkley, a lot of people thought he was, as they say, kicking outside his coverage. But according to Christie, she couldn’t help but fall in love with the Piano Man.
People has an excerpt of the supermodel’s new memoir, Uptown Girl, due April 29. In it, she describes meeting Billy in 1983 at a dive bar on the island of St. Barts.
“He definitely didn’t look like a rock star,” Christie writes. Although Billy was a superstar, Christie writes that at first she was so unfamiliar with him that she wasn’t sure if his name was Billy Joel or Billy Joe.
However, she tells People, “When I heard him sing on stage, I found myself undeniably attracted to this physically hot and charismatic man.” Despite the fact that both had been married before, Christie describes their early relationship as “like teenagers falling in love. We were suddenly fumbling and stuttering and dropping things.”
Christie, mother of Billy’s eldest daughter, Alexa, tells People that Billy “was so sensitive and he did all the old-fashioned things, the flowers, the notes and the poems and the songs.”
“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?”
Billy and Christie wed in 1985 and divorced in 1994. Christie writes in the book, “To be clear, I never wanted to end things with Billy. But his drinking was bigger than the both of us.”
Billy married twice more: In 2004 he wed chef Katie Lee; they split in 2009. He’s currently married to Alexis Roderick, who he wed in 2015. Christie has married and divorced twice.
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