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Christie Brinkley Gave Billy Joel One Too Many Chances

In her new memoir, the model recounts her ex-husband’s drunken outbursts, including a chaise longue thrown through patio doors.

I thought he may have been mortified for me to see him that drunk — it was the first time it had happened in my presence — and wanting to spare him even more embarrassment, I went back to bed and pretended to fall asleep, staying there until he woke up hours later, hungover, bleary-eyed, and contrite.” Joel “seemed horrified” by his behavior the next morning and said he had been “writing hits” for his upcoming album, The Bridge. “No number of Tic Tacs or vodka shots,” she explains, “was helping soothe his throat.” An American film crew was given permission to shoot a documentary during this Soviet tour, and as a cinematic choice, they planned to illuminate certain audience members with bright lights. “Even though I was emotional, I loved Billy and didn’t want the incident to become a news story.” Joel apologized the next morning and insisted there was no affair, which Brinkley accepted as true: “But, then again, incident-and-repair had become our pattern, even if, slowly, things between us were becoming more difficult to mend.”

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