'BOOZE WAS BILLY'S OTHER WOMAN'

The Uptown Girl reveals why she had no choice but to leave Billy Joel

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Christie Brinkley admits that she once felt like "the luckiest girl in the whole arena" when she sat front row to watch her husband Billy Joel play to his adoring fans in the '80s. Yet away from the stage, Billy's addiction to alcohol was slowly ruining their marriage, and looking back, Christie wonders what could have been for them "if there wasn't that issue".

"I do think that we were probably really soulmates, it was an amazing time of my life," Christie, 71, says of being married to the Piano Man from 1985 to 1994, with whom she shares daughter Alexa Ray.

"He was so sensitive and he did all the old-fashioned things, the flowers, the notes and the poems and the songs... How could I not fall in love with him?"

In her new memoir