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Billy Joel said he was “devastated” when second wife Christie Brinkley left him during their nine-year marriage that ended in divorce in 1994.
“I realized love is not concrete,” the “Uptown Girl” singer told the producers in the second part of his documentary “Bill Joel: And So it Goes.” He added, “You know, you feel like it is, 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.”
An obviously emotional Brinkley said she had tried.
CHRISTIE BRINKLEY RECOUNTS THE DEVASTATING PERSONAL MOMENT THAT ‘NEARLY BROKE HER’
“I wanted it to work. I knew how lucky I was, having music and all that, but it just didn’t work,” she explained.
The former couple met in 1983 in St. Barts. They married in 1985 and soon had their only daughter, Alexa Ray Joel.
“Our relationship went from lots of fun and really totally enjoying each other to his work consuming him, and if I did go on the road, I wasn’t seeing him because the unwind period after the show was going on so late into the night, and it’s like ‘What am I even doing here?’” Brinkley said. “And I just got like ‘I don’t even know what to do, but I can’t be lonely just me and Alexa in this big old house that was supposed to be so full of life and love and music and laughter and all that.’ Things were starting to deteriorate.”
Joel said it was a hard time for him because they were newly married and had a young daughter, but he was on the road a lot of the time.
“I realized love is not concrete. You know, you feel like it is, 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.”
CHRISTIE BRINKLEY ADMITS SHE’S A ‘FOOL FOR LOVE’ DESPITE FOUR FAILED MARRIAGES
“I was in a relationship with someone who I cared deeply about, but I was not able to be at home,” he said. “I was not able to be with my family. It was a very sad time for me.”
The 76-year-old said he thinks his daughter knew he and Brinkley were going to split up.
“And for a child that’s a very traumatic thing,” he said.
Joel’s own parents divorced when he was 8 years old, around the same age as Alexa when he and Brinkley divorced in 1994, but Joel’s father left after the divorce, and he didn’t see him again until he was in his 20s.
“She needed to know I’d always be there,” the “Piano Man” singer said of his own daughter, now 39 years old.
“I don’t think it’s a secret that his drinking got pretty bad, and he couldn’t really remember what he did when he was drinking, so he didn’t really know how he could hurt people,” Brinkley added.
She said she would pretend to be asleep when he came into their bedroom drunk, “‘cause I didn’t want to see him in that condition.”
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Holding back tears, she added, “One night, we had an argument and I said, ‘I really can’t take this anymore, and I’m just going to take Alexa back up to New York and leave, and he said, ‘Yeah, fine, go.’”
“True love isn’t always floating on clouds and ecstasy,” Joel told the producers over the lyrics of “And So it Goes.”
“A lot of it’s pain.”
Joel would go on to marry celebrity chef Katie Lee in 2004. They divorced five years later, and he married his current wife, Alexis Roderick, in 2015. They share two daughters. Before his marriage to Brinkley, Joel was married to Elizabeth Small from 1973 until 1983.
The first part of “Billy Joe: And So it Goes” premiered last Friday on HBO and for streaming on HBO Max. The second part premieres Friday, July 25 on HBO and HBO Max at 8 p.m.
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