LOOKING sensational at 71, Christie Brinkley shows off the amazing body that has powered her global career as a supermodel for more than 50 years.
But despite being one of the world’s most beautiful women, now she has revealed how astonishingly unlucky in love she has been over the years.
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Christie was the all-American cover girl who starred in the cheesy 1983 video for Billy Joel’s hit Uptown Girl, in which he played a mechanic fixing her chauffeur-driven Rolls-Royce.
When they went on to marry in 1985 they were the It couple of the decade, with famous friends such as singer Cyndi Lauper and actors Chevy Chase and Brooke Shields.
But Christie has now revealed the truth about her marriage to the Piano Man singer, saying he “cheated” on her — with alcohol.
Booze was the other woman and it was beginning to seem that Billy preferred to be withher rather than me. But I never wanted to end things with Billy
Christie
In her new memoir Uptown Girl she says: “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.
“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.”
In the book she also tells of her secret heartache over her abusive childhood and “tortured” marriage to fourth husband Peter Cook, who cheated on her with a teenager.
Christie describes the moment she discovered Cook was having a fling, while she was visiting a local high school to give a speech near their home in the Hamptons, New York.
Married on a yacht
A school dad approached her and said: “I need to tell you that arrogant husband of yours has been having an affair with my teenage daughter.”
Christie writes: “I was so stunned I froze.”
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It was the latest in a sad series of disasters to hit her love life.
When Christie was 18 she left Los Angeles for Paris, where she met Moroccan artist Jean-Francois Allaux.
They married in 1973 when she was just 19, but divorced in 1981.
A year later Christie began dating French racing driver Olivier Chandon de Brailles, heir to the Moet et Chandon champagne fortune, who she met at New York nightclub Studio 54 while promoting her 1982 calendar.
She was left “crushed” when 27-year-old New York-based Olivier was killed during a practice session in Florida 12 months later.
While Christie was already a well-known model, appearing on the cover of Sports Illustrated magazine’s Swimsuit Issue a record three times running, it was her relationship with Billy Joel that really pushed her into the spotlight.
She had no idea who the singer was when they first crossed paths at the airport while holidaying on the Caribbean island of St Barts in 1983.
Billy later told Rolling Stone magazine how he had recognised Christie right away and they were later introduced properly when she sat down to sing a song with him at a dive bar.
He reached out to offer his condolences after Olivier was killed when his car hurtled through the race track’s barrier at more than 100mph and landed in a canal.
The pair fell deeply in love, and Billy cast Christie in his Uptown Girl video — but there was one problem.
He was already dating Australian model Elle Macpherson, who was allegedly waiting for him at his apartment when he brought Christie home one night.
“I got ousted,” Elle later said.
Christie and Billy were married on a yacht in New York harbour in March 1985 and bought a home on Long Island.
Both were then at the height of their careers.
Christie writes: “We laughed like you could not believe. After seeing him in concert I felt like the luckiest girl in the whole arena.
“I like to be right in the front row by the piano so he could glance at me and I could look up and see everything.”
Christie says she and Billy were “probably soulmates”, adding: “I had so much fun. We were such nomads, gypsies — between his job and mine, we were seeing the world. It was wonderful, really wonderful.”
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The couple had a daughter, Alexa Ray, nine months after their wedding, but Billy’s heavy drinking started taking a toll on their relationship.
She revealed that he would vanish, sometimes for days, missing their daughter’s fifth birthday party and a Thanksgiving dinner.
‘Continues to deny’
Christie says the final straw came when his band visited their house for a rehearsal and “delusional” Billy accused them of eating a pot of pasta — which he had eaten himself.
The next day she asked him for a divorce after he went out drinking, amid rumours that he was also having affairs.
She told US gossip site Page Six: “To this day, Billy continues to deny ever having had affairs, and I’ve always believed him.
“But on that New Year’s Day in 1994, when he did finally straggle home, I asked him to leave.”
They divorced the same year, but are still friends, and last year he sang Uptown Girl to Christie at a concert in Madison Square Garden.
When they first split, she was said to have harboured hopes that they would get back together.
In April 1994 she went skiing in Colorado, but almost died when a helicopter taking her and other skiers up the slopes crashed.
She writes: “The helicopter smacked into the granite mountain with such terrible speed and force that it split in two.”
She describes how, trapped in the shattered cabin, she and six other passengers bounced violently “like bodies in a washing machine”.
She still suffers post-traumatic stress from the crash, which brought Billy rushing to her side, then flying her home.
Christie believed they would reunite, but when she was half asleep on the plane she heard Billy make a call to someone promising: “No, don’t worry. I’m not going back to her. I just need to see her through this.”
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The dream was finally over.
Weeks later she fell for property developer Richard Taubman, who had also been in the helicopter crash.
They married the same year and Christie soon gave birth to her second child, Jack.
Describing their love as a “trauma bond”, she and Taubman split in 1995 after just a year, after he went behind her back to contact her estranged biological father, Herb Hudson.
She had not spoken to her dad since she was eight, and alleges he abused her throughout early childhood, rubbing her raw with towels, whipping her with a belt and washing her mouth out with soap.
“It didn’t matter how good or quiet I was. Herb always seemed to find a reason to punish me,” she writes.
Christie also claims that as soon as they married, Taubman asked her for £56,000 and “borrowed” £1.5million during their seven-month marriage — money she claims she never saw again.
When your whole world falls apart and you realise in a heartbeat you’ve suddenly become the cliché middle-aged woman whose husband is having an affair with a much, much younger woman, what do you do?
Christie
When they split, Taubman, now 77, agreed to walk away from her and their son, relinquishing parental rights, says Christie.
Then in 1996 came her final and arguably most humiliating marriage, to architect Peter Cook.
The couple, who have a daughter, Sailor, 26, were together for ten years before she discovered he was having an affair with an 18-year-old girl, who has never been named.
Christie says: “When your whole world falls apart and you realise in a heartbeat you’ve suddenly become the cliché middle-aged woman whose husband is having an affair with a much, much younger woman, what do you do?”
An array of pornographic pictures
In fact what she did was to set about gaining access to Cook’s computer with two friends, and they soon found an array of pornographic pictures.
She tells in her book how they printed out the racy content, and she continues: “It was so insane that it was almost funny and soon enough, the three of us were doubled over in laughter, as print-outs of girls in X-rated poses began piling up on the floor faster than trash outside a greasy takeaway.”
During their messy, six-year divorce and custody battle, Christie learned that Cook’s nickname for her was “the cash cow”.
Today, like Christie, Billy Joel is on his fourth marriage, after trying the knot with Wall Street executive Alexis Roderick, 42, in 2015.
He has had two stints in rehab — in 1992 and 2005 — and in 2023 he told the Los Angeles Times that he had stopped drinking “a couple of years ago”.
While their time together might have been rocky, Billy, 75, and Christie are still the best of friends and he has given her book his blessing.
She writes: “He’s the father of my first-born and we spent such great formative years together. And I’ll love him for ever. Things just reached a point where I knew I couldn’t live with him.”
- Uptown Girl by Christie Brinkley is published by HarperCollins on May 8.
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Ageing like a fine wine
IN her memoir, Christie reveals how as a young model she used to starve herself to look good.
On one day she ate a single digestive biscuit for breakfast then later on some fruit, brown rice, a bite of cheese and fat-free yoghurt.
She has a far healthier attitude now.
Christie credits SPF 50 sunscreen and a vegetarian “rainbow” diet for her clear complexion, saying: “The more colours you can eat in a day, the better.”
And she keeps her lean frame by doing workouts, running, bike-riding and paddle-boarding.
She also takes vitamins B, E and D, plus calcium.
Christie admits she is a fan of non-invasive face-tightening and lifting treatments.
