How long has Billy Joel been sober? Christie Brinkley blames singer’s addiction for divorce

Billy Joel disclosed in 2023 that he had been sober for two years at that time. According to People, Model Christie Brinkley, his ex-wife, opens up about her marriage to the artist and reveals how his alcohol addiction had finally led to their divorce in her memoir titled Uptown Girl.

Christie Brinkley and Billy Joel's romance had a sad start. The two met at a dive bar in St. Bart's when Brinkley was grieving the death of her lover, Olivier Chandon de Brailles, heir to the Moët & Chandon champagne fortune, who died in a racing accident in 1983. They were married in 1985 as a result of their quick and strong love.

Throughout their years together, Brinkley and Joel had a lavish lifestyle that was fueled by her modeling employment and Billy Joel's concerts. Brinkley said in an interview with Page Six:

“We were such nomads, gypsies — just between his job and mine, we were seeing the world … It was wonderful, really wonderful.”

The Pianoman and the Uptown Girl were really the 'it couple'; they were the winning combination in the eyes of the public after welcoming their daughter Alexa Ray Joel. Meanwhile, there were personal difficulties behind closed doors.

Brinkley disclosed that, despite their idyllic romance, Billy Joel's drinking problem was the main factor that caused their relationship to fall apart. In an interview with Page Six, she said:

“If there wasn’t that issue …I do think that we were probably really soulmates, it was an amazing time of my life."

She explained that during periods of severe drinking, Joel would occasionally disappear for days. Brinkley recalled a distressing incident in which Joel vanished for two days following their daughter's fifth birthday celebration, leaving her terrified that something horrible had occurred.

The Pianoman had the model worried another time when he had gone missing during their Thanksgiving meal.

Another incident had Brinkley locking the singer out of their couple's Hawaiian hotel suite after a friend informed her that there were pictures of Joel with an Australian actress. Leading the actress to grab and throw a chaise lounge through the patio doors, breaking the glass.

The model had had enough of the Pianoman when he accused his bandmates of eating his pasta when he had eaten it. This incident had happened at their East Hampton house. The very next day, she asked Billy Joel for a divorce. She revealed:

“He was acting delusional in a way I’d never seen before."

Adding to this, she said:

“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.”

She concluded with:

“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.”

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Billy Joel's battle with alcoholism

During the last years of his marriage to Brinkley, Billy Joel sought professional assistance for his alcoholism and initially checked himself into a rehab in 1992. In 2005, he went back to treatment after relapsing.

Billy Joel told the Los Angeles Times in 2023 that he stopped drinking "a couple of years ago." He was honest when he claimed:

“It wasn’t a big AA kick. I just got to a point where I’d had enough. I didn’t enjoy being completely inebriated, and it probably created more problems in my life than I needed.”

Joel also talked about how, in the past, he used alcohol as a way to relax after shows:

“I don’t need it now. I used to get offstage and be so wound up and adrenalized that I needed something to calm down to go to sleep. But I realized when you’re drinking yourself to sleep, you’re not really sleeping. You’re just passing out.”

After his divorce from Brinkley, he got married two more times, first to Katie Lee, an American cookbook author, from 2004 to 2010. Then he got married to Alexis Roderick in 2015 after dating her, whom he first met in 2009.

Billy Joel and his wife, Alexis Roderick, have two kids together: Della Rose and Remy Anne. Brinkley is mainly in the Hamptons, while Billy now spends most of his time in Florida.

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Billy Joel's relationship with his ex-wife Christie Brinkley

Billy Joel and Christie Brinkley have remained friendly and encouraging despite everything. Brinkley recalled their early times together, emphasizing Joel's amorous actions, such as composing songs and poetry for her. She said:

“He’s the father of my firstborn and we spent such great formative years together. And I’ll love him forever. Things just reached a point where I knew I couldn’t live with him.”

Joel granted her permission to write about their relationship in her biography, she revealed:

"Go ahead and tell your story… the good, the bad, whatever you need to say,'”

She added:

"Leaving Billy wasn’t easy for me to do — and it’s not easy to say anything bad about somebody that I hold in such high regard … [although] I don’t think it’s bad.”

She hopes that her story might help someone with addictions. Speaking about addictions, she also said:

“When you’re in the throes of a drinking addiction, you don’t remember what you did. You wake up the next day, and it’s the person who is counting on you who knows what happened.”

Adding to this, she said:

“And it’s brave of Billy to say to people around him, ‘You can speak freely, tell your story.’ And I think that’s part of his recovery.”

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Brinkley, who is 71 now, claims she is content living alone after being married four times. When asked if she would ever get married again, she replied:

“Never say never … I mean, [dates are] very much fewer and far between nowadays. And I’m very, very content and happy doing my own thing, which I think is also necessary before you have another relationship. But, you know we’ll see, you never know.”

On April 29, 2025, her book Uptown Girl will be published, detailing her experiences with love, loss, and resiliency.

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