"I still believe in love": Model Christie Brinkley reflects on career, heartbreak, and healing in memoir Uptown Girl

Having appeared on over five hundred magazine covers in her modeling career, Christie Brinkley has not given up on love. The supermodel, who is originally from Monroe, Michigan, has had a successful career, not only appearing on numerous magazine covers, but also appearing on three consecutive covers of one of America's most popular magazines, Sports Illustrated. She was on the covers of the Swimsuit Issue from 1979 to 1981.

Besides being a renowned and well-established supermodel, Brinkley fell in love quite a few times and was married four times. Brinkley has talked about all of that in her upcoming memoir, Uptown Girl, in which she has opened up about a bunch of things, including her career, earlier heartbreaks, and healing. However, she has provided People Magazine with exclusive access to explore the memoir.

Brinkley, while talking about the themes of her brand-new memoir, mentioned that love is one of the themes that she explored and said:

"I still believe in love."

Christie's first marriage was with French illustrator Jean-François Allaux, whom she met in Paris when she was just 19, and they tied the knot in 1975 and got divorced in 1981.

Then she came across Olivier Chandon, who belonged to a wealthy family that owned a French champagne company, and fell in love with him. However, Chandon left Brinkley with a broken heart as he died in a severe car accident.

Following that, the celebrated supermodel met the iconic Billy Joel, the American singer-songwriter and pianist, who was also nicknamed the Piano Man. Brinkley fell head over heels for Joel and married him in 1985.

In her memoir, while talking about Billy, she said:

"We laughed like you couldn’t believe. And seeing him in concert, I felt like the luckiest girl in the whole arena. I liked to be right in the front row by the piano so he could glance at me and I could look up and see everything."

Unfortunately, after almost a decade, their marriage didn't work out as it was supposed to and ended in a divorce in 1994.

Right after her separation from Joel, Christie met Ricky Taubman, a Colorado-based real estate developer, with whom she survived a helicopter crash. Christie mentioned:

"I definitely had post traumatic stress disorder and I was making some really bad choices. I was really lost."

She married him the same year she divorced Joel. While she was married to Taubman, Brinkley realised that she was missing Billy and wondered if he might come back to her. Eventually, she realized she should've taken time to reflect and learn. She called off the marriage with Ricky the next year, in 1995.

Brinkley's fourth marriage was with Peter Cook, an architect. Their marriage too ended controversially in 2008. Christie was informed that Cook was having an affair with a young girl. Brinkley talked about it in her memoir, saying:

"I didn’t say anything to anybody. But one day, when I came out of the courtroom I said, ‘Google a narcissist.’ The letters started pouring in and I had so many women saying ‘Thank you … I realize other women are going through it."

What does Christie Brinkley think about love?

After being in multiple marriages and several other relationships, when Brinkley was asked about things she learned about love, she thoughtfully replied:

"Love is something that you have to cherish while you have it and nurture it, but you can’t hang onto it and you can’t change it or mold it to your desires."

In her memoir Uptown Girl, she mentioned a forensic psychiatrist whom she had to see as she was seriously affected by her last marriage. She mentioned that the psychiatrist thought that she would never be able to fall in love again, as well as that she wouldn't be able to trust anyone, primarily because of her past relationships and the experiences she had. In her memoir, Brinkley mentioned:

"Because to go from the experience I’d had with my [biological] father and the other things that had happened in my life, he thought it was just way too much so that’s probably why I’m not with anybody now but that’s not to say there’s not some miracle guy out there – but it’s okay if it doesn’t happen."

She further added:

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“I’m very, very happy and content."

Christie Brinkley's memoir, Uptown Girl, is set to be released on April 29, 2025.

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