Despite their tumultuous 11-year marriage, Billy Joel and Christine Brinkley are on good terms.
On April 29, he 71-year-old model and actress opened up about their relationship and marriage in her new memoir Uptown Girl, and told Today.comwhat the 75-year-old “Piano Man” singer’s response was to her book.
“He said, ‘Just say what you need to say,'” Brinkley explained when she asked Joel for his blessing to talk about their relationship. “I think that’s part of his healing, so I applaud him for all of that. It takes a lot of courage.”
In the memoir, Brinkley chronicled her life growing up in Southern California and her career in modeling and acting. But she revealed that she found recounting her whirlwind relationship with Joel the hardest to write.
“The hardest thing to include was criticism of Billy, because I do care about my friendship with him,” she continued. “He was going through extraordinary circumstances in his life, things most people wouldn’t ever have to deal with. I did have to go there because that was the reality.”
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The pair were married for 11 years and despite speculation and rumors that he cheated, Brinkley revealed that his drinking habits led to the downfall of their marriage.
In her book, Brinkley described several of Joel’s drunken outbursts and times he wouldn’t come home for days while he drank at bars.
“I did everything for our marriage, constantly working to make myself, our home, and everything around us into whatever he could possibly want or hope for,” she wrote in her book. “I continually told him how much I loved him, making sure he always felt adored and appreciated, because he was. But his 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 with me.”
Uptown Girlis now available wherever books are sold.
Related: Christie Brinkley Makes Bold Admission About Ex Billy Joel
