Billy Joel Went MIA For Days, Christie Brinkley Recalls ‘Panic I Couldn’t Shake’

Christie Brinkley has lived a life most people could only imagine, and she’s finally telling it all in her new memoir, “Uptown Girl.”

The 71-year-old supermodel, who has survived heartbreak, tragedy, and even a terrifying helicopter crash, is opening up like never before about her wild journey.

In her book, Christie Brinkley reveals secrets about her marriage to Billy Joel, the pain of divorce, and how she’s found happiness again.

Brinkley, who named her memoir after Joel’s 1983 hit song inspired by her, revealed that his struggles with drinking ultimately doomed their marriage.

“If there wasn’t that issue…,” she told Page Six, trailing off. “I do think that we were probably really soulmates, it was an amazing time of my life. 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.”

But behind the glamorous façade, things were crumbling.

Brinkley writes that Joel would vanish for days while drinking, even disappearing during their daughter Alexa Ray’s fifth birthday party, a terrifying episode that left her with “visions of his car wrapped around a tree” and developing “a panic I couldn’t shake.” (Eerily, Joel did crash his Mercedes into a tree in 2003.)

There were other blow-ups too, like when Brinkley locked Joel out of their hotel suite after hearing rumors he was partying with an Australian actress, only for him to return “visibly and audibly drunk,” throwing a chaise lounge through the patio doors.

The breaking point? A drunken meltdown over a bowl of pasta with his band.

“He was acting delusional in a way I’d never seen before,” Brinkley recalled, revealing she asked for a divorce the very next day. “The drinking was bigger than the both of us,” she said. “Booze was the other woman and it was beginning to seem that he preferred to be with her rather than me.”

Despite the pain, Brinkley said she still holds deep affection for Joel, who’s now sober and married to Alexis Roderick, with whom he shares two young daughters.

“He’s the father of my firstborn and we spent such great formative years together. And I’ll love him forever,” she said.

When she told him about the book, Joel told her, “Go ahead and tell your story… the good, the bad, whatever you need to say.”

Brinkley hopes her story sheds light on addiction and how it impacts families. “When you’re in the throes of a drinking addiction, you don’t remember what you did,” she said. “It’s the person who is counting on you who knows what happened.”

But Billy wasn’t her only heartbreak.

The Sports Illustrated legend found fame after moving to Paris at 18, heartbroken over a cheating boyfriend. In Paris, she married artist Jean François Allaux, but the romance ended in divorce by 1981.

Then came tragedy. In 1983, her boyfriend, Olivier Chandon de Brailles, heir to the Moët & Chandon fortune, was killed in a racing accident. Not long after, Brinkley met Joel at a dive bar in St. Barts.

Her life took another horrifying turn in 1994 when she survived a helicopter crash while heli-skiing in Telluride. Brinkley described how the chopper “just fell from the sky,” and her ski boot got caught in the wreckage, dragging her toward a sheer cliff, only to be saved by a wall of snow.

She credits a “magic dirt” charm from Chimayo, New Mexico, for her survival. “The fact that any of us lived through that is such a miracle,” she said. “And each day is such a gift.”

Though she and Joel were separated at the time, he rushed to her side, but Brinkley overheard him tell someone on the phone, “No, don’t worry, I’m not going back to her, I just need to see her through this.”

“It broke my heart,” she confessed.

Brinkley’s third marriage, to real-estate developer Rick Taubman, ended badly, too. She alleges he “borrowed” $2 million from her during their seven-month marriage.

Her fourth marriage, to architect Peter Cook, ended in a messy, highly public divorce after he allegedly had an affair with an 18-year-old.

Her lawyer once joked she had “bad taste in husbands,” but Brinkley shrugged it off, “I think two of the four ain’t bad!”

“It wasn’t how I expected it to be,” she added, “but I came out of it with these amazing kids.”

Asked if she would ever marry again, Brinkley laughed, “Never say never… I’m very, very content and happy doing my own thing, which I think is necessary before you have another relationship. But, you know, we’ll see, you never know.”

“Uptown Girl” will be available for purchase starting April 29, 2025.