Christie Brinkley is living her best life, despite having suffered public heartbreak, multiple times.
At 71, the supermodel is still standing tall.
She’s taken her hits, learned the lessons, and shared them with the world through her memoir Uptown Girl which was released in April.
Her most famous ex-husband, Billy Joel, has since released a documentary called And So It Goes with further details of their painful split – although it can be argued even this was far from Brinkley’s worst heartbreak.
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Let’s take a look at Brinkley’s loves and losses, and how this former “fool for love” now feels about her four marriages and past relationships.
Jean‑François Allaux (1975–1981)
Brinkley married young, at the age of 19, the same year she was discovered by a photographer and began her modelling career.
Her first marriage was to French artist Jean‑François Allaux. They divorced in 1981.
Writing in Uptown Girl, she said, “I still believe in love. There were a few doozies. I had two great loves, [my first husband] Jean-Francois and Billy.”
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“I always believed in soul mates. I thought I had four of them. Now I’m not sure,” she told the New York Times.
“Maybe I had my two soul mates with Jean and Billy. Maybe I rushed out of my marriage to Jean. Maybe I should have tried to make it work longer with Billy. I did start to wonder if maybe it’s me – if I was unlovable.”
She ultimately left her first marriage because she desired “freedom”
“I got married too young. I started to feel constrained and regretted being tied down,” she said.
Olivier Chandon de Brailles (1982–1983)
Her next relationship was with French racing heir Olivier Chandon de Brailles, who was also the heir to the Moët et Chandon champagne fortune.
They met at the infamous Studio 54, where Brinkley was holding a party to promote her 1982 modelling calendar.
However, a year into their great romance, de Brailles died in a car crash. He had phoned Brinkley an hour before his death. The couple had arranged to meet in Palm Beach following his race.
Olivier Chandon is buried in the Laferté-sur-Aube cemetery, in Haute-Marne.
It was a profound loss for Brinkley, and it led to her next and most famous relationship when singer Billy Joel reached out to offer his condolences.
Billy Joel (1983–1994)
Brinkley and Joel met in 1983 in St Barts.
Joel had previously dated Australian model Elle McPherson and the song Uptown Girl was initially about her, but he later said it evolved to reflect his new relationship with Brinkley.
Their marriage lasted 10 years, and they welcomed their daughter Alexa Ray in 1985.
It was Joel’s alcoholism that would lead to their divorce.
“Booze was the other woman”, Brinkley wrote in her book, adding that the Piano Man singer’s addiction “was bigger than the both of us” and ultimately made him choose drink over their relationship.
“To be clear, I never wanted to end things with Billy […] I did everything for our marriage… But his drinking was bigger than the both of us.”
Reflecting on their time together, said said: “He wrote songs for me… beautiful things for me.”
She said being in the audience while Joel performed his sell-out concerts made her feel like the “luckiest girl in the whole arena”.
Therapy helped Brinkley heal from the very public breakup and the pair are now friends.
She later said writing about her split from Joel was the hardest part of her book, but her ex gave her his blessing.
She told People: “I definitely had post-traumatic stress disorder and I was making some really bad choices. I was really lost.
“I was looking at myself in that chapter, like, what happened to you?
“I think I was reeling from losing Billy and and I was thinking Billy is going to come riding into town any second and go ‘I can’t lose you. I got in deeper. I didn’t take time to stop and reflect and learn.'”
Richard Taubman (1994–1995)
Brinkley began a relationship with real estate developer Richard Taubman shortly after her split from Joel in 1994 and they married later that year.
They had survived a helicopter crash together and this increased the speed of their bond. The couple welcomed their son Jack in June 1995.
She later described their relationship as emotionally difficult and it didn’t last the year, telling Today Taubman “loved my money more than me”.
“Ricky was a larger-than-life character who married me for my money,” she claimed.
“Our relationship was complicated by the fact that I was pregnant, and I wanted to make the right decisions. The relationship came on the heels of my divorce from Billy, which I was devastated about.”
In Uptown Girl she wrote that after Jack was born, she had a session with her therapist and made the choice to give their marriage one more go.
She returned to Taubman’s home in Colorado and claimed he asked her for money.
“That’s when I knew that this was not nor could it ever be love or even a real relationship: it was usership, manipulation, and at its worst, emotional torture,” she wrote.
“I booked a flight back to New York.”
When she arrived, she claimed Taubman called her and told her “I’m going to walk away from you and the baby”, just like her biological father did to her. After that phone call, she filed for divorce.
Peter Cook (1996–2008)
Brinkley’s final marriage, to architect Peter Cook, was her most painful split. They married in September 1996 and welcomed their daughter Sailor in 1998 via IVF.
The couple were happily married until 2006, when Brinkley discovered her husband having an affair with his teenage assistant.
What followed was a bitter decade-long legal battle.
She described it in her memoir as “the most tortured relationship I’ve ever had.”
Brinkley writes that she was giving a graduation speech at a local high school when a man walked up to her and said, “Excuse me. I need to tell you that arrogant husband of yours has been having an affair with my teenage daughter.”
Brinkley was stunned, and soon found out it was true.
“When your whole world falls apart and you realise 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 writes in her book.
She said she later discovered even more evidence of his infidelity.
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Brinkley said her fourth husband was the one who “loved young women more than me”.
“I was married to a stranger who had other lives. I had three children. I wanted to protect them from the fallout and from their life being blown apart,” she wrote.
“The divorce lasted for years. It was agonising.”
Their divorce was finalised in July 2008 after an all-night negotiation.
The future
Brinkley told the New York Times she is a “fool for love” and while she has found peace and happiness, she would like to meet someone one day.
She has ruled out getting married again.
”I would never get married again. With what I know, I don’t see why anyone would get married,” she told the New York Times.
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Yet she remains open-hearted, saying she believes in true love as something to celebrate repeatedly, just with a formal “exit strategy” ready up front .
“You have to be happy alone so that you get with a man for the right reasons—and you’re not clinging to him.
“I am pretty comfortable with my life the way it is, so que será, será!”
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