Christie Brinkley Reveals Drunken Billy Joel Moment She Almost Didn’t Include In Memoir

In her memoir, Uptown Girl, the 71-year-old supermodel recalled watching Joel drunkenly eat spaghetti from a large pan on the stove … before then accusing his family of eating his pasta and kicking them out of the house, per the Los Angeles Times.

“I hesitated to put that scene in the book,” she told the outlet in an interview promoting her tell-all. “But at the same time, it demonstrates what I was up against.”

Brinkley also revealed during the interview why she never told anyone about the singer’s drinking habits, nor their issues in the marriage.

“I was 100% dedicated to Billy, but I never told anyone about our issues, not even my friends,” she told the newspaper. “It was very difficult in that way, but we had a child together, and I was trying to protect the family.”

Knowing that alcoholism “is a disease,” she said she wanted to stay in the marriage and work through their issues together.

“I knew that there had to be some way to help him, and not always get to that point where this person who you love is suddenly a stranger to you,” she said.

The pair stayed married for 11 years before she filed for divorce in 1994. The split came after the drinking took over and he was rumored to have had an affair — rumors he allegedly denies.

“To this day, Billy continues to deny ever having had affairs, and I’ve always believed him,” she writes in the book. “But on that New Year’s Day in 1994, when he did finally straggle home, I asked him to leave.”

“His drinking was bigger than the both of us,” she also told the Times. “In the end, when the relationship isn’t functioning the way you want it to be anymore, that’s the worst kind of loneliness because you just can’t make it work together and that’s painful.”

Despite what they went through, Brinkley revealed they are now have a “great” friendship.

“He lives mainly in Florida, so we don’t see him as much as when he lived in Sag Harbor, but when he comes by to see [their daughter] Alexa, he’ll come in and say hello,” she shared.

Unfortunately for Brinkley, her experience which cheating allegations did not end with Joel.

During her fourth marriage to architect Peter Cook, she discovered he was having an affair in 2006, which lead to the breakdown of their eight year union. In retrospect, she calls theirs the “most tortured relationship I’ve ever had,” per PEOPLE. 

The divorce and custody battle made headlines around the world as they fought over their daughter, Sailor, and Jack, her son whom he’d adopted.

For years, Brinkley left the details of how she learned about his affair to herself, however she recalled the story in her memoir.

“Excuse me,” she said a man she had never seen before said to her while at a high school graduation at which she was speaking. “I need to tell you that arrogant husband of yours has been having an affair with my teenage daughter,” she said the man claimed.

“I was so stunned that I froze,” she wrote. She looked into the audience where Cook was sitting with Jack. “As soon as I saw him, Peter’s eyes were already trained on my face, as he began shaking his head, ‘No,'” she revealed, per PEOPLE.

“When your whole world falls apart and you realize in a heartbeat you’ve suddenly become the cliche middle-aged woman whose husband is having an affair with a much (much) younger woman, what do you do?” she wrote.

Cook has since admitted to the affair.

Uptown Girl is on sale now, wherever books are sold.