Christie Brinkley was hesitant to mention her ex-husband Billy Joel’s blackout snacking in her new memoir.
The model recalled in “Uptown Girl” (released Tuesday) that the singer once drunkenly ate spaghetti from a large pan on the stove before accusing his family of eating his pasta and kicking them out of the house.
“I hesitated to put that scene in the book,” she told the Los Angeles Times in an interview published Tuesday. “But at the same time, it demonstrates what I was up against.”
Brinkley, 71, explained that she never spoke about Joel’s drinking problems at the time — not even with her loved ones — because she did not want the tabloids to catch wind.
“I was 100% dedicated to Billy, but I never told anyone about our issues, not even my friends,” she told the newspaper. “It was very difficult in that way, but we had a child together, and I was trying to protect the family.”
The Sports Illustrated Swimsuit cover girl understood that alcoholism “is a disease” and wanted to work through her troubles with Joel, now 75, because she deeply loved him.
“I knew that there had to be some way to help him, and not always get to that point where this person who you love is suddenly a stranger to you,” she said.
In her tell-all, Brinkley also detailed waking up early one morning to find that the “Piano Man” crooner had disappeared — only for him to return shortly before dawn stumbling out of a cab drunk and ill-tempered. The incidents made her go back and forth between loving and fearing him.
For the sake of their daughter, Alexa Ray Joel, now 39, and because she loved Billy, Brinkley held on for 11 years. However, once the Grammy winner’s drinking went too far and he began having a string of highly publicized affairs, she finally filed for divorce in 1994.
More than three decades after ending their marriage, the “Parks and Recreation” alum shared that she and Billy maintain a “great” friendship.
“He lives mainly in Florida, so we don’t see him as much as when he lived in Sag Harbor, but when he comes by to see Alexa, he’ll come in and say hello,” she told People earlier this month.
Brinkley clarified that she “never wanted to end things” with the musician.
“But his drinking was bigger than the both of us,” she explained to the magazine. “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.”
The blond beauty was married to Jean-Francois Allaux from 1973 to 1981, Billy from 1985 to 1994, Richard Taubman from 1994 to 1995 and Peter Cook from 1996 to 2008.
She and Cook welcomed two children together: son Jack Brinkley Cook, 29, and daughter Sailor Brinkley Cook, 26.
Billy, for his part, was also married to Elizabeth Weber Small from 1973 to 1982 and Katie Lee from 2004 to 2009.
The songwriter wed Alexis Roderick, 42, in 2015, and they share two daughters: Della, 9, and Remy, 7.
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