Christie Brinkley opens up about the first time she met Billy Joel in her memoir, titled Uptown Girl: A Memoir. And it wasn't the most flattering first impression.
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Uptown Girl: A Memoir is set to release on May 8. But a small excerpt has been shared with PEOPLE about the first time she met the iconic piano man and beyond. She recounts how she fell "hopelessly" in love with him, despite their first meeting in a dive motel bar in St. Barts in 1983.
"He definitely didn't look like a rock star," she wrote of the budding legendary musician at the piano. "The man was sunburned to a crisp, his face the same color as cranberries and unctuous with oil, which he'd undoubtedly slathered on to soothe the burn, topped by what I like to call 'the Long Island bubble:' a carapace of curly shellacked hair popular in the 1980s in parts of suburban New York."
That's quite the vivid description of the Piano Man. I'm sure you can picture him now, sitting there. Not so flattering though, right? I think it's kind of hilarious that this was her first impression of her soon-to-be husband.
Christie Brinkley Fell In Love Pretty Hard, Pretty Fast
Brinkley then goes on to explain why she fell in love with Billy Joel.
"We laughed like you couldn't believe," she wrote.
"But also he was so sensitive and he did all the old-fashioned things, the flowers, the notes and the poems and the songs. He was going into the recording studio and he was writing all these songs and saying 'This one's for you.' How could I not fall in love with him?"
When I heard him sing on stage," she continued, "I found myself undeniably attached to this physically hot and charismatic man."
"We were really like teenagers falling in love. We were suddenly fumbling and stuttering and dropping things," she said, describing their fairy tale halcyon days.
They would go on to marry on March 23, 1985. Unfortunately, his substance abuse would cause a rift too big to patch, and they went their separate ways. Brinkley added that she didn't want things to end between them, but felt they were forced apart.
"His drinking was bigger than the both of us."
