Iconic ‘80s Couple Reflect on the Argument That Led to Their Divorce originally appeared on Parade.
More than 30 years later, Billy Joel and Christie Brinkley rehashed the confrontation that ended their marriage.
The supermodel, 71 — who was married to the singer, 76, from 1985 to 1994 and shares daughter Alexa Ray, 39, with him — reflected on the mounting tension between the pair caused by Joel’s excessive drinking and time away from their family during his two-year River of Dreams tour.
“I don’t think it’s a secret that his drinking got pretty bad,” Brinkley said in the second installment of the HBO documentary Billy Joel: And So It Goes. “And he couldn’t really remember what he did when he was drinking and so he didn’t really know how he could hurt people.”
Brinkley confessed she would frequently “just pretend that I was sleeping when he’d come in” because she “didn’t wanna see him in that condition.”
🎬 SIGN UP for Parade’s Daily newsletter to get the latest pop culture news & celebrity interviews delivered right to your inbox 🎬
Ultimately, Brinkley reached her breaking point with Joel.
“And then one night we had an argument and I said, ‘I really can’t take this anymore, and I’m just gonna take Alexa back up to New York and leave,’” she recounted. “And he said, ‘Yeah, fine, go.’”
As for Joel’s recollection of the ordeal, he shared that his divorce from Brinkley taught him “love is not concrete.”
“You feel like it is,” he added, “but there are things eating away at it. And, in the end, it all catches up. And it’s hard. And I was so devastated.”
Brinkley was just as affected by their split, noting that she “tried” and “wanted it to work” but “it just didn’t.”
Decades later, Joel and Brinkley remain friends. He has since married his fourth wife, Alexis Roderick, in 2015, and the couple share two daughters, Della, 9, and Remy, 7. Brinkley, meanwhile, is seemingly single following her 2008 divorce from her fourth husband, Peter Cook, and her 2016 split from boyfriend John Mellencamp.
Iconic ‘80s Couple Reflect on the Argument That Led to Their Divorce first appeared on Parade on Jul 25, 2025
This story was originally reported by Parade on Jul 25, 2025, where it first appeared.
