Christie Brinkley’s Memoir Uptown Girl (with Nicole Boyd)

Summary

Glamorous Trash: A Celebrity Memoir Podcast
Episode Summary: Christie Brinkley’s Memoir Uptown Girl (with Nicole Boyd)
Release Date: June 24, 2025

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Introduction

In this episode of Glamorous Trash: A Celebrity Memoir Podcast, host Chelsea Devantez delves into Christy Brinkley's latest memoir, Uptown Girl. Joined by her guest Nicole Boyd, the discussion navigates through Brinkley's tumultuous journey, exploring themes of childhood abuse, the pressures of the modeling industry, complex relationships, and personal resilience.

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Guest Introduction

Nicole Boyd, a multifaceted professional with experience as a photography editor, former model, documentary filmmaker, and veterinary technician, brings a unique perspective to the conversation. Chelsea and Nicole reminisce about their friendship's origins, highlighting shared experiences and personal anecdotes that enrich their analysis of the memoir.

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Overview of Uptown Girl

Uptown Girl is Christy Brinkley's candid recount of her life, marked by early childhood trauma, meteoric rise in the modeling world, and a series of high-profile relationships. Published in May 2025, the memoir offers an unfiltered look into Brinkley’s personal and professional life, framed through her characteristic optimism and flair for storytelling.

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Key Themes

1. Childhood and Family

Brinkley opens her memoir with a heartfelt poem dedicated to her parents, setting a reflective tone. She recounts a harrowing childhood marked by physical abuse from her biological father, Herb, who was physically and emotionally abusive until her mother intervened by adopting Christy and her brother. At [17:05], Chelsea notes, "She has a steadfast environmentalist voice, yet her narrative lacks the emotional depth typically expected from such trauma."

2. Modeling Career

Brinkley's entry into the modeling world is depicted as both serendipitous and challenging. Discovered on April Fool’s Day while holding a dog named Bianca, she swiftly ascends to superstardom, securing a 25-year contract with CoverGirl. Nicole highlights the absurdity of early modeling advice, such as being restricted to a fish-only diet prescribed by Eileen Ford ([33:02]). This experience underscores the relentless pressure models face regarding body image.

3. Complex Relationships and Marriages

Brinkley’s memoir details her four marriages, each fraught with its own set of challenges:

• Jean Francois: Brinkley describes her first marriage as a whirlwind romance that ends when she chooses her burgeoning modeling career over remaining with Jean ([35:09]).

• Olivier: Her second marriage to race car driver Olivier is portrayed as passionate yet unstable, culminating in his tragic death following a racecar accident ([36:32]).

• Billy Joel: Perhaps the most publicized relationship, Brinkley’s marriage to Billy Joel is painted as a blend of romance and turmoil. They marry in 1983, and their union faces strain due to Joel's alcoholism and a substantial financial betrayal by his manager, Frank ([40:59]). Despite these issues, their relationship also highlights moments of genuine affection and collaboration, such as Brinkley painting the album cover for Joel’s River of Dreams ([67:13]).

• Ricky: Brinkley’s relationship with Ricky is characterized by swift, intense commitments and eventual financial exploitation, where she lends him $2 million ([73:53]).

• Peter Cook: Her final marriage to Peter Cook is marked by age differences and repeated infidelities, leading to another swift divorce after he cheats with significantly younger women ([83:00]).

Nicole observes, “Brinkley seems to repeat patterns in her relationships, often not recognizing red flags until it’s too late,” reflecting on the cyclical nature of Brinkley’s romantic choices.

4. Trauma and Resilience

Throughout her memoir, Brinkley touches upon overcoming childhood trauma and navigating the highs and lows of her personal life with a seeming detachment. The memoir oscillates between vivid storytelling and superficial emotional engagement, leaving readers questioning the depth of Brinkley’s introspection on her past ([17:05], [21:07]).

5. Personal Growth and Reflections

Despite the tumultuous events, Brinkley maintains a narrative of optimism and self-improvement. She engages in various ventures, including launching her wine brand, Bellissima Wines, and a clothing line, Tower Hill. However, the memoir ends abruptly with product placements, detracting from the emotional closure that listeners might seek ([95:21]).

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Notable Anecdotes and Quotes

• Sylvester Stallone’s Brother’s Comments: Brunckley shares an incident where Frank Stallone's disparaging remarks about her weight exemplify the cruelty models often face. “[00:05] B: …'You could be really cute if you lost a few pounds.' What a monster.”

• Heli-Skiing Accident: Brinkley recounts a near-fatal helicopter crash during a heli-skiing trip, attributing her survival to mystical protection from sacred dirt she sprinkled around the helicopter. “[13:01] … she believes that this sacred dirt saved her from the helicopter crash.”

• Uplifting Moments with Billy Joel: A romantic yet surreal encounter in St. Bart’s where Brinkley sings with Joel, mistakenly identifying Whitney Houston as an undiscovered singer. “[49:13] …'How do you know if you can sing?' she said, wanting to sing alongside Joel.”

• Product Placement Ending: The memoir concludes with mentions of Brinkley’s entrepreneurial ventures, blending her personal story with subtle advertising. “[95:21] …Bellissima Wines and the clothing line Tower Hill…”

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Host and Guest Opinions

Chelsea Devantez appreciates the wild and engaging aspects of Brinkley's memoir, finding it entertaining despite the lack of emotional depth. “[91:28] B: ...it was very fun to read.”

Nicole Boyd shares a more critical perspective, noting the memoir's resemblance to a travel blog rather than a deeply introspective memoir. She highlights the repetitive patterns in Brinkley’s relationships and the superficial handling of trauma. “[07:44] …the book is dense with details, but light on reasons, emotional nuance.”

Both hosts agree that while the memoir is a romp through Brinkley’s glamorous life, it falls short in delivering profound emotional connections and reflections.

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Conclusions and Final Thoughts

Uptown Girl presents a vivid portrayal of Christy Brinkley’s life, filled with high-stakes modeling careers, star-studded relationships, and personal triumphs and setbacks. While the memoir offers a fascinating glimpse into the life of a supermodel navigating fame and personal challenges, it leaves listeners yearning for deeper emotional engagement and introspection.

Chelsea and Nicole conclude that the book is ideal for those who enjoy a fantastical account of the modeling world filled with extravagant adventures but may not resonate with readers seeking profound personal revelations.

Notable Quote from the Episode:

“[07:02] A: And I have a full spreadsheet of guys and some decisions I really needed to keep track of.”

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Final Reflections

Glamorous Trash successfully dissects Uptown Girl, offering listeners a comprehensive overview of Christy Brinkley’s memoir. Through candid discussions and critical insights, the episode sheds light on the complex interplay between fame, personal relationships, and resilience, making it a must-listen for fans of celebrity memoirs and pop culture enthusiasts.

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Transcript

[A]

Hey.

[B]

Welcome to Glamorous Trash. This is a celebrity memoir podcast where we book club all kinds of things, from celebrity memoirs to viral articles to trashy discourse to elevate your life. And this is a celebrity memoir episode. Today, we are discussing Uptown Girl, a memoir by Christie Brinkley, published May 2025. So this is brand new, this book. I have so much to say. I had the most fun talking to my guest about this absolutely bananas journey. But do know before we dive in, there's going to be talk about child abuse, diet, culture, body image talk. So please take care when listening. And before we get into it all, I just want to tell you two little tidbits that didn't make it into our conversation. But you must. I need the people to know. First off, there is a story in the book when Sylvester Stallone's brother Frank meets Christie Brinkley, who is, at this point in time, a supermodel. She's wildly famous, and Frank Stallone tells Christy, here's the quote from the book. You could be really cute if you lost a few pounds. This man must have just been in so much pain in his brother's shadow that he originated nagging. He just thought, the only way I'll get some is if I just try and find a woman to destroy. Imagine telling a supermodel not only that she could be cute, but she'd have to lose a few pounds. What a monster. What a monster. And then the second thing I want to tell you is that later, later, later in life, Christie Brinkley does a role on Broadway. Now, for those who listen to the podcast often, I'll give you a couple seconds to say it out loud. That's right. It's Roxie Hart. She plays Roxie Hart in Chicago. And this is just. Listen, I've said it before, but this is a role for celebrity Cameos. Because while it's an incredible role, if you want to, you could just talk, sing it, and step, snap, and pretend that you belong on Broadway. So, of course, we've got a Roxy Heart cameo. I think I'm gonna add that to our Dringo sheet. And the last thing I'll say is this book is titled Uptown Girl, which, as you know, was written by Billy Joel, Christy Brinkley's ex husband, supposedly about Christie. She gets into the real story in the book, which we will tell you. But Uptown Girl is mentioned so frequently in this book, I think it's only fitting that we play it for you.

[A]

He's been living in a right brick.

[B]

World as long as anyone would have A chance. My guest today is dear friend of mine. She is. And I. I told her I was gonna list off all the things I knew about her. She's like a photography editor. I honestly, I think a former model, a documentary filmmaker. Also, she was a veterinarian tech who solved some of my dog's issues. And when we fostered a dog, I was in a hot tub with Nicole, and she convinced me I needed that dog DNA test because he has kind of has a purple tongue, which I didn't even know dogs could have. He has, like, a purple spot on his tongue, and, like, that is significant of dangerous breeds, but he did not come back as that breed. Nicole, are you shocked? He had.

[A]

He had a little bit of chow. He had a little bit of chow.

[B]

A little bit of chow. And that's a dangerous breed.

[A]

Okay. It's not necessarily a dangerous breed. Just when you enter a veterinary facility, if we see purple, we just go a little extra precaution. So it's good to know how your dog behaves up front so you can give them a heads up of, like, he likes this. He doesn't like this. Because we will always, as techs, spot those kinds of things.

[B]

Wait, did I even say your name? Nicole Boyd. Hi. Hi. I love having a friend who, you know, whenever you have a thing with a dog, you'll Google it and you'll just get the craziest answers in the world. So now I have my friend Nicole to text, and our dog at the vet, he likes to hold your hand.

[A]

Incredible.

[B]

And get hugs. So he's a real cutie. And I know. Here's a memoir crossover from reading one of Chelsea Handler's memoirs. Anytime she meets, like, a chow from the streets who needs to be adopted, she adopts any chow chow she can. So she always has, like, four to five chow chows.

[A]

Fascinating.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Wow.

[B]

And one time, she took her dogs Xanax on a plane. That's what I know about Chelsea Hannah.

[A]

It is the same drug.

[B]

You heard it here first from the vet tech herself. Nicole, thank you so much for being here for this book. And this gives me the chance to. To introduce my guest with the story of how we first met to highlight female friendship. Meet cutes. I haven't been able to do one of these for a while.

[A]

I was thinking that, yeah, I had.

[B]

A phase where I just really tried to shorten it up for the listeners, but then people called for it back, but then there was no one to do it with. So. Nicole, do you remember how we first met?

[A]

I believe that we first met. Met like eyeballs laid upon each other at an Emmys party, I believe, with Ashley.

[B]

Yes, I think that's right. That's right.

[A]

And then at some of our mutual friends, we just kept meeting each other and being like, I like this one. I shall hang out more.

[B]

Yes, yes. And then we truly met at another weird industry event that was outside on a rooftop, but it was the weirdest type of rain where you were just sopping wet. And that was the time when I remember us truly becoming friends. Because you said you listened to the podcast and we talked about CPTSD.

[A]

Heck yeah.

[B]

@ a rainy Hollywood party. It was. Yeah, it was so gross. But also fun to talk to you.

[A]

Well, it's kind of. It's the best, worst thing to relate to someone on because I'm happy. I don't know a ton of people with it, but at the same time, I'm sorry. So sad. You know how I feel sometimes. Like, I'm so sorry. You know how I feel. But thank God someone can relate to me. It's bizarre.

[B]

Yeah, that's how I feel too. Okay, what did you think of the Christie Brinkley book? Overall thoughts?

[A]

Oh, Christy. It was a roller coaster of both her life and my perception of it. I went from being like, I need more on this. And then also being like, there is so much in here. This is so den with information. I need an index. It felt like at some point I made a spreadsheet actually, because I'm crazy.

[B]

What's on the spreadsheet?

[A]

I needed her ages of when she was making certain decisions because it was so wild that I needed to make.

[B]

Sure she wasn't in her 30s for some of this.

[A]

100% those decisions. Also not great. So I have a full spreadsheet of guys and some decisions I really needed to keep track of.

[B]

Will you send this to me and we'll post it on the Patreon? This is so funny. Yes, this book is dense, dense, dense with details, but light on reasons, emotional nuance or layers to explain some of the things. And we're gonna get into it. But sometimes it'd be like, oh, my beautiful, perfect love story for six chapters. And it's like, and then I asked him for a divorce and you're like, what happened to Jean Cl?

[A]

Or pages on trying to find an apartment in New York City and then staying with their brother in law's boyfriend. And when he and a boyfriend passed of aids, I cried for days. One sentence.

[B]

One. One sentence.

[A]

Sentence.

[B]

Okay, so here's the thing. Here's what I want to say to everyone listening. It is very clear she has a very sweetheart and is a very lovely person. And she seems like this type of celebrity that if you met anyone who's ever served her table or anything like that, they would say she is the nicest, sweetest, kindest human. It was really hard for me because I want to really honor. She seems to have a heart of gold. But I will also give my impression of the book. Okay, ready?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Kona Village Cafe au lait nutrient rich soil arts and crafts activities Wavelets Edge of the shore with a seashell lesson spoke from our hearts with a M. Bakataka from the leaf that we wove around our head with kousse, a champagne saltwater elixir of love Warm Hawaiian air Click, snap, burst. Quesadilla. How accurate would you say that is?

[A]

1,000%.

[B]

I did the audiobook.

[A]

And how was that?

[B]

I rarely, rarely, rarely do audiobooks. They're not my thing ever. But also it makes the podcast really hard to do because I really rely on my notes. I like writing with a pen, but life was so intense this week. I had to be doing multiple things at once and my husband had to. Not a big deal at all, but had to be in the hospital with a family member. So I was just taking care of everything. So I had to just do this on audiobook. So I have my phone notes app of notes and there are notes like, I don't want to hear Christie Brinkley do an accent on quesadilla. Or what is another note? Where the hell has Gayle, Lisa and Mindy been?

[A]

I circled the page number.

[B]

Yes. Because throughout my notes, I keep writing, there ain't a female friend in sight. Why is there not one female in this book?

[A]

There was Deb in the beginning who bit her like a Gatorade.

[B]

That's right. Bit her like an alligator. That's right.

[A]

But nothing that really stood out to me. But there was also a lot of mention of how many friends she had, but there was no names. It was like, oh, and then I met up with all my friends and all my friends and I did this. I had so many friends in Paris. But who are you talking to? Day in and day out, you need.

[B]

You need somebody and a female friend. And I said, if there were any female friends, she would have avoided half the things in this book, I would hope. And then at the end, she's like, my dearest friends, Lisa, Gill, and Mindy, who've been with me through everything. And I said, you bitches are fired. 1. Why are there no stories of you woven into Christie's life? And to. Did y' all say anything? Okay, so let's really get into it. Christy has been married four times, which I fucking love. Love a woman rich in marriages and divorce, lived a life and that it was kind of the most exciting part of the book for me. And I think that's how we're gonna structure the episode or at least touch points I want to give you for those listening. We are going to spend time with kind of the five big loves of her life. First, Jean Francois. Second, there will be Olivier. Third, Billy Joel. Then we will get into her just scam artist husband, Ricky, who I'm calling Sticky Ricky. And then finally, her last husband to date, Peter Cook. So if you just want to get to the Billy Joel stuff, you're gonna have to skip ahead in the episode. Probably like 40 minutes, because there's a bunch of stuff before that. But those are sort of like the big five time markers in the book. And there's also a lot of supermodel stories. She is one of the first supermodels, even though I'm sure Janice Dickinson would bitch slap me for saying that she and Janice were friends for a time. And there's a lot of modeling stories that I could have done without, even though I know anyone really interested in her really needs those or wants those stories. Probably. Okay. The book starts with a thank you to her parents in a rhyming poem. And I said, oh, no. Oh, oh, oh, oh. Chelsea's in for a real week. And then it goes into this opening story of this crazy story when she is going to go heli. Skiing.

[A]

Yes. Do you know, I don't. I'm not wealthy enough to know about this.

[B]

Okay. Yes. I lived in the Rocky Mountains for a time, so I do know skiing. I don't know heli skiing. I don't know if you're just in a helicopter and then you're dropped out of the helicopter and you just sit ski, or if these are special skis. And I didn't look it up because I don't think I want the information in my body. But what do you think hel is? As I look it up, I would.

[A]

Imagine it is where you are dropped off by a helicopter to ski, like a super remote mountain.

[B]

Yes. Okay. I'm looking it up and it does look like normal sized skis. And so you just helicopter somewhere and ski. Honestly, all of you, like, come. Come the fuck on.

[A]

Like, how can we make skiing more Expensive.

[B]

More expensive and more dangerous, Please. And what's also really tough about Chrissy is at the end of the book, she's talking about how she's, like, a steadfast environmentalist and we really need to change the world. I'm like, but are you not connecting the dots to all the private planes and helicopters that exist in this book? Like, which. Because, I mean, there's a way to be like, I was a supermodel in the 90s. Whoopsie Daisy. Didn't think about it. Now I'm really focused on this. But she didn't connect the dots in a way where I was like, are you aware. Are you aware that half of this book involves helicopters? So, okay, so they're going heli. Skiing in Colorado, out somewhere around Telluride. Listen, we are back in the arms of my people. Okay? We were. The way she was describing the Southwest, I said, you got to stop writing poems about the Southwest because the way you were describing it is not doing. Is not serving it. So anyways, the crash is crazy intense. Like, it. It sounds unsurvivable, but she says, I believe in magic Dringo. For a psychic moment, she had gone to Santa Fe, where she had gotten some dirt from the Chumayo people, and it was protective chumayo dirt. And she had this Chumayo charm. And she sprinkled the dirt around the helicopter, and later they found the charm intact. And she believes that this sacred dirt saved her from the helicopter crash, which, listen, I think it fucking might have. Okay, we're gonna take a quick break right now, and we'll be right back. The Disney Hulu Max bundle. It's the ultimate bundle for an unbelievable price plan starting at $16.99 a month. Get it and watch Marvel Television's Ironheart on Disney. I want to build something iconic. A new season of the Bear on Hulu. We can make people happy. And the epic a Minecraft MO on Max. Anything you can imagine is possible. The Disney Plus Hulu Max bundle plan starting at 16.99amonth. All these and more streaming soon. Terms apply. Visit Disney hulumaxbundle.com for details. Okay, let's dive back into the episode.

[A]

Truly crazy and a great way to start because you do that. You start with the poem and you go, oh. And then you jump into this. You go, okay, I think I'm in.

[B]

Like, yeah, riveting.

[A]

There's page five, and I'm already in magic. Like, yeah, I want magical dirt as well. Where can I get some?

[B]

Welcome to Santa Fe. My friend, I'll take you there. And, I mean, I loved her discovery in the Southwest. It really spoke to me. And then her childhood is so dark, which even the dark parts were told in a really light way. Even when she's telling the darkest of dark stories, it didn't come through. And I was listening to the audiobook, which I found really interesting, which is that her biological father, Herb, and her mom are together. It sounded like, till she's about, like, nine or nine. And she's. Yeah. And she's a brother, and he's a horrific abuser. Physical abuse. And he is beating her with his belts and washing her mouth with soap daily. And she would pad her clothes with magazines. And finally, her mom gets away and meets Mr. Brinkley, who will go on to adopt her, become her father. It's who she calls Father, who's like, this incredible man who changes all their lives by just being, like, a good man. But she has this day in court where Herb says, I don't want my parental rights to Christy and her brother, and just gives up and walks away. And she never speaks of him again. And usually when someone's experienced, like, really dark stuff in childhood, there's a certain depth that just exudes from that by. Just by having to live through it. And I felt so distant from how this impacted her somehow. Yeah.

[A]

I actually reread this beginning part after I finished the book, because I was like. I feel like I know her a little bit better now. Let me try to put this lens back.

[B]

I love that you did the work. Thank you. I love it.

[A]

And I think, especially given her generation, her talking about it being black and white, like, this is the black and white part of her movie, she might not remember a ton of it and.

[B]

Might not have that emotional connectivity because it was so traumatic.

[A]

And she's so. Given the way she looks and given how she's bebopped throughout the world, since she might be in that world where you feel like you're not allowed to have the sad stuff happen to you. So she just kind of wants to be like, this is it. I don't acknowledge it. Cause then when she went on her little adventure, she doesn't remember if she got in trouble for it, which I found to be an interesting observation, because she remembers the beatings, and it's just interesting. I would think that you would remember that if you got in a lot of trouble for. For this thing that was such a big moment in your life.

[B]

I think that's right. And so her adventure is also. I Could talk so much about ptsd. And I don't even know if she. I'm not diagnosing her, but I'm saying the way she tells the story and the way her memory reflects, and she's telling it as a movie, black and white in color, and this particular story that is gonna be told like magic. I also was like, ooh, it's also trauma.

[A]

Big teacher.

[B]

And trauma. Trauma has, like, beautiful superpowers to it and that you. Your brain can do wild things, which is that Herb is beating her. And she. The way the story is told, she looks out the window and realizes she can fly out of it, and she flies out the window, and she flies over corn fields, and she looks down, and she sees. Sees the horse trigger from the Roy Rogers show. And the next day, she gathers all the kids in the neighborhood, and she's like, do you guys want to see the horse trigger? And you want to see Roy Rogers house? I know where it is. And she gathers up all the kids in the neighborhood and leads them for hours through this cornfield and makes turns and turns and turns until they turn left, see the horse trigger. And then they meet Roy Rogers and his wife. And his wife is like, I saw a story on the news about a bunch of neighborhood kids who went missing. Is this you all? Because. Because I've called the police, but to help you. And it's cute. And they put the kids in the police car, and they, like, let them play with sirens. Like, it's not a scary police event. And she says, like, she's looked it up, and she found, like, newspaper articles of them living near her when she was a child at this age. And that she really believes that this happened. And it sounds like it. It did happen, and it was magic. But also, like, I've heard some other survivor stories of, like, lifting up out of your body and experiencing something cosmic. Have you had. I was like, yeah, Christy, absolutely.

[A]

I completely agree. I was just right there with her. And maybe it's just the wrong order. Maybe she found it in real life, and that's her go to escapism. But it. Whatever works in that moment. I also looked it up. Cause I was like, when she really, literally says, what really happened? I can't tell you. And you're like, what is this book gonna be? This is early on. That part's exciting.

[B]

Cause you're like, what is happening in the audiobook? It's like. Cause I believe in magic. And I'm like, yes, Christy, magic. And the other part of my brain is like, Mm. Yes. You are going through a lot as a kid. Your brain is scrambled. And magic can exist in scrambled moments.

[A]

Yes, it can.

[B]

Yeah. And I've just heard some other really intense survivor stories that like, yeah, is it trauma? Is it magic? Doesn't matter.

[A]

100. I don't know if that kept her brain from intact. Yes, I completely agree.

[B]

Yep, Yep. Absolutely. But then there's other magic moments. And the next magic storyline. For anyone who listens to the podcast, you know how I felt about it. She intuitively starts speaking French in an improv portion of her high school class and realizes she is meant to live in Paris and be a artist in Paris and speak French. And there's so much French accent in the book, the croissant, the atelier, that now I don't know. I don't know how my accent is. I'm just doing a shitty impression. But I.

[A]

What a treat in that audiobook that is.

[B]

Would we say a treat? I was like, oh, okay, okay. And so she's just like, I gotta go to Paris and be an artist now. Do you have the same Paris girl Hate that I have? I'm a biased, bitter little pill.

[A]

I do. And I don't know exactly where it comes from. Of. Especially, like, it's Paris and artist. Like, I need an artist, and I need him to be in a labyrinth pirate costume. Like all this. Like, well, he was an artist.

[B]

He was an artist.

[A]

And you're like, just take a breath. Like it's. But maybe it's that escapism again. It didn't stop. She had a fantasy of what it would be like. She had the different dad already, but. And she was gonna get it, and she kind of did.

[B]

Yes, exactly.

[A]

So improv was tough. Or she would. The intuitive.

[B]

I'm like, I don't think. I bet you if there had been a French person there, they would have been like, that was not French. I mean, that was some gibberish with French like sounds.

[A]

I've been fluent in Spanish when I'm drunk.

[B]

Sure.

[A]

Who knows what I said?

[B]

Yeah. I was like, oh, okay. And another crazy thing in the book, she told us the details, but she didn't. She didn't thread the needle, which is that every single man, except for one in this book cheats on her. All of them. All of them. And it starts with her boyfriend Johnny, who in high school, she puts off going to Paris because she's going to be with Johnny. She makes a quilt for them to bring to their new home where they're going to live together. Forever. She's, you know, she's still in high school, and she's at a party waiting for him with gifts in her hands when his friend Brian, who wants it? She didn't note that. She was like, brian was just such a good guy. He decided to help me. He drove me around looking for his friend Johnny, who was cheating on me. I was like, okay. Brian was trying to get it, and he said, I'm sorry to tell you this, but Johnny is cheating on you with Mary Tyler Moore's stand in.

[A]

Incredible. Unbelievable. Incredible.

[B]

So she's like, so I know he's cheated on me with a girl who looks like Mary Tyler Moore. And when Brian helpfully drives her around to find her cheating boyfriend, she spots him in the apartment he lives in with Mary Tyler Moore. Stand in because they had used her quilt and cut it in half to make curtains. You dog, Johnny.

[A]

Crazy.

[B]

So insane. So then she's like, well, I guess I am gonna go to Paris. And from that moment on, the book becomes international. And she prints letters in the book that she wrote home from Paris that are. They were hard for me. What'd you think of them?

[A]

I wrote a note that. Saying that study abroad has just always been the same. It just. It makes you like that I'm guilty of it. Like, you can't help it.

[B]

You can't help but get the study abroad personality. Yeah. I mean, it remains in your memoir 40 years after the fact of going to Perry and. And just loving it. And listen, she loved Paris. You always think of Christy Brinkley as such a California girl, all American girl, when in fact, she is quite internationally traveled. And part of her huge break is going to be that she is so distinctly American in Paris, and so is she's kind of picked up and exoticized as a model there. When she gets her start, which I think is like a huge part of how she gets. Huge. But I'm jumping a little bit ahead. I'll scroll past. My note said, are there any female friends here? And she meets Jean Vachon. Am I. This is. This is, again, my impression of how she said it in the book. Jean Vachon. Now, what did it look like in print?

[A]

Jean Francois is how I say Jean Francois. Maybe say it, but I. I'm not French. So.

[B]

Jean Francon. Anyway, so she's like, Jean Francon, Jean Francois. I don't know. I don't know. She didn't say Jean Francois.

[A]

Great.

[B]

Well, it's the improv.

[A]

She was improvising.

[B]

Okay. Yes. There's something in there. So she's like, I met him and it was love at first sight. And my. This is one of my favorite parts of the book. And she's like, and by the way, I only ever had this feeling with Jean Vachon, who becomes her first husband. I did not feel it about Billy Joel. She doesn't even mention Ricky. There's Olivier, the race car driver, who she's, like, kind of felt with him. And then one of her husbands doesn't even get a mention. But she's basically like, this was the only time I was ever actually truly in love with someone from the beginning.

[A]

Which is absolutely the reflection of writing the book, of being like, wow, I fumbled that.

[B]

Fumbled the bag. And she kind of mentions like, maybe this was my forever soulmate that I fucked up. But she doesn't mention it enough.

[A]

No, there's not that reflection throughout. She's born on Groundhog Day, and I do like how she brings up this repetitive pattern of hers, but I don't think there's enough, I guess, critique of herself kind of thing.

[B]

Yeah, that reflection.

[A]

It's like, yeah, we see the pattern. I hope you really, really do. And I hope that you're just not ready to put that in writing yet. Cause it's pretty incredible how repetitive it is. I also just want to make sure we don't skip over Sasha Mandarin.

[B]

Please discuss.

[A]

Sasha Mandarin is just a new name she has picked. And now that she is in France, this is her. Her name. She signs letters as that. She uses it in Greece because it's just more fun to have a different name. And I went, here's a friend.

[B]

I have to tell you. However she said it in the book, it was not Sasha vanboreen, but that is the pronunciation that I want. How did you say it? I can't even recall. There's so. I mean, the book is. Again, it's dense, but Sasha Mandarin is what we're going with. I think hers was like, I can't even, like, something with, like, a real, real trill on it. And yeah, again, another podcast theme. When a person changes their name, it is the buoy letting you know the Titanic is miles and miles below. There's trauma, trauma, trauma coming through. Sasha Mandarin just sashaying through the city. Thank you. Thank you so much for making sure I didn't skip that. And this is my best description of the book because it's a delightful book, but not in any of the notes that I prefer. It is a delightful song, but not a song for me specifically, but I can totally see how people would like this. Book, but it is a travel blog, a thousand percent.

[A]

And then you come up for air and you realize three years have passed. Only three years. And she's still only 21. And she's been in everything you could ever imagine.

[B]

Yeah, it's shocking.

[A]

Her career is shocking.

[B]

Her career is unbelievable. Starting with the fact that she's discovered as a model on April Fools with.

[A]

A dying April fool dog in a basket in her hands.

[B]

Bianca Dringo. Bianca the dog. And yes, the dog is in a basket in her hands when literally, you there. You should be a model. Happens. And not only does that happen, but after she takes, like, some random photos in the park with him, she then takes a trip with Jean Francois, who I'm just going to commit to Jean Valjean, even though that is not his name. Everyone, it's Jean Francois. But Jean Valjean and her. He, like, has to go into the military service. And so they're doing long distance and she takes a trip and she gets, like, a black eye and she tries them an eyelash curler, and it rips all her eyelashes out. And then she goes back and she gets a 25 year covergirl contract like a week later.

[A]

It's outrageous. Yeah.

[B]

Her very first photo shoot was a cover. Yes.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Of a magazine.

[A]

And then left that shoot, went to another go see and booked her on the spot for, like, a Vogue spread. And you're like, what? Were there just no models yet? Like, what's happening?

[B]

She was like, I never thought I could be a model because her mom was always doing that Weight Watchers magnet that was on my friend's mom's fridge door growing up. A minute on the lips. What a year on the hips. Always on the hips.

[A]

Wild.

[B]

Forever on the hips. Something. And she said she had chipmunk cheeks. And so she was like, I never even considered I could be a model. And the next day is like, I'm one of the first supermodels in the world. Okay, we're gonna take a quick break right now, and we'll be right back. Okay, let's dive back into the episode.

[A]

I think that's why Janice started shading her, because I think she shades Janice in this book because Janice says that she's the first supermodel. And then in here, she's like, oh, this launched her career after she had had.

[B]

And I know from my Instagram story today that Janice Dickinson says that Christie Brinkley not only stole her boyfriend, but that her butt is fat and flat.

[A]

That tracks. That tracks for old Jan. Jan. Yeah.

[B]

And listen, for everyone who's asked me to cover Janice Dickinson's memoir. I actually worked with Janice Dickinson's daughter, who is out here in Hollywood. She was a writer's assistant. And so I just. I just can't when the book's too close to me, I just can't. But it sounds like a romp. And Janice, I think, was like, fuck you, Christie Brinkley. Drop dead in her book. And then Christie Brinkley is, like, real coy about her shade. What was the shade you picked up on that she gave about Janice?

[A]

We are pretty far along in this book of how much work Christy has done. And then she's like, oh, we were hanging out. And then we were part of this model documentary. I was the first supermodel featured in the documentary. And also with Janice, this launched her career. And so it's just a little like, now you just slam everything I've done. And also, once you read this, you go, yeah, you are the first supermodel. Cause this is.

[B]

Yeah. Pretty sure you are crazy. Yeah. And Janice Dickinson had a boyfriend named Mike. And she also said that after Janice and Mike broke up, Christy started hanging out with Mike all the time. And they became really good friends. And people always said that they were together, and they laughed it off because they were just good friends. And I said, why did you become best friends with your friend's ex boyfriend, though?

[A]

Right? And what she did to Bonnie later, the reason they went to Telluride was because Bonnie had a crush on Ricky.

[B]

Yeah. And then she doesn't even mention that she. Okay, we'll get to that. Yeah, we gotta check on Bonnie. Okay. So back into the modeling years. There's so much modeling stuff, but I'm just gonna pull out some highlights. Her first agent puts her on a diet of only fish. Fish and water. She said, if you go to a restaurant and there is fish and broccoli, don't eat the broccoli, only eat the fish. Now, of all the diets you've ever heard of, where does this land on the scale of fucking disgusting?

[A]

It's pretty horrific. Though I am happy about the protein, because I feel like protein often gets lost in some of these new ED traps.

[B]

Yeah. Like when you're not allowed to eat broccoli, like, things have gone so far wrong in your life. Oh, by the way, the woman giving her this advice, her tit had popped out of her bikini top, and she hadn't noticed. So it's not someone you want to take advice from. Her name is Eileen. I mean, Ford Models.

[A]

I think yeah, Eileen Ford, who is kind of iconic.

[B]

Eileen Ford, lol.

[A]

Chelsea, who is iconic. And that was early on. That was probably my favorite part of some of these stories because I was like, finally we're seeing some titties. Because. Oh, yeah, incredible. Her boobs just out, like.

[B]

And she's like, only fish titty in the wind. Just like. Okay. Unfortunately, Christy refers to herself, but I'm sure everyone else was referring to her as a full figured model.

[A]

Yeah, that is the. I know for a fact I used. Because I used to produce photo shoots. I know that that was told to her day in, day out. And so she is forced to believe that. And it sucks. And it still sucks.

[B]

It does. It does. And she was saying, like, but this was actually a gift because she said she could always do lingerie shoots and swimsuit shoots, which would always provide stable work, no matter what was happening in the fashion industry. It also kind of made me sad because even though there was so much body image bullshit going on back then, looking at her model photos and comparing them to photos of models now, you do get like, oh, my gosh. She was like the quote, healthy California girl. And you do kind of miss it. I mean, you know, in terms of, like, what we look at as a model today, 100%. She also coins the term. I don't call it dieting. I call it Denia Team. Put it on a magnet. Christy, Sell it. Sell it to the Home Shopping Network with the rest of your clothes.

[A]

A little fish with little fish.

[B]

Okay. So she and Jean Francois get married with their feet in the ocean. You know, they're drinking champagne, tasting the salt sea air, Kona Village kind of flower, bouquets of Miley. And she is just like, marital bliss is everything.

[A]

And she's also 21 years old.

[B]

See, And I really wish that had been okay. So you just checked the spreadsheet.

[A]

I got the spreadsheet on right above, so I can refer to it. Cause she was really good with the dates later in the book. And so it made me go, I need to, like, pace out these ages. So she got married at 21.

[B]

That's crazy. Because what she does say is that when she's 25, she realizes she wants to divorce him because she has not lived enough life. He was the first man in Paris she fell for. And the only tiny bit of an issue you get is that she truly becomes a supermodel. And he, oh, shock of the century. Is. Feels insecure about that. And then he's like, okay, stay with me while I paint. And she's like, I actually want to go to clubs and be a supermodel and, like, live this fancy life that he was now insecure about because she had all the money and he had none, which is going to be another pattern in her life. And she asks him for a divorce.

[A]

Yeah. Which I cannot relate to getting married at 21. So part of me was like, yes, like, go. Go. Do it, please.

[B]

Okay. But think of whatever man you were dating or person you were dating at 21. Would you be asking for a divorce from them at 25 had you married them?

[A]

A thousand percent.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

I would hope. Like, and I would hope everyone around would be like, get. Run. Run from these people.

[B]

I would be divorcing a man who put up a misconnection on Craigslist that I answered. That's who I'd be asking for a divorce from if I married the guy I was dating at 21 who wore sweatpants to the first date because God wanted me to miss that connection. But technology allowed me the chance to fuck my life up and reconnect.

[A]

At 21, I dated a man who is now in prison for murder. So what?

[B]

What?

[A]

It was not a serious relationship, but it was like, a 21. I was 21. He was an Olympian.

[B]

I'm sorry. Every detail of this is getting crazier.

[A]

It was an Olympian who happened to have no legs who ended up murdering his girlfriend I had a fling with when I was 21.

[B]

This. I feel like I have enough details that I could Google this crime at this point. Yes. Is that right?

[A]

Absolutely. Absolutely, you could.

[B]

I'm sorry. I just. I'm gonna need a minute before I can continue this episode. What the are you talking about?

[A]

Did you not know that?

[B]

No. Nicole, you have a lot of phenomenal, phenomenal stories. Like, very. Like, obviously, you have a memoir in you. I. But this one, I never knew. No. I didn't casually know that you dated an Olympian who murdered his girlfriend. I didn't know that. Okay, sorry.

[A]

Derailed the whole thing.

[B]

I actually, like, I feel like you just broke my brain. So, so sorry. Sorry. You better keep them coming. Let's see if you can top that story as we go. So, yeah, I guess you probably would have asked for a divorce because you'd be married to a murderer. So here's a fun little tangent. Fun fact. The number one fashion designer mentioned throughout memoirs by far at this point is. Do you want to take a guess?

[A]

Chanel.

[B]

Norma Kamali.

[A]

Oh, interesting.

[B]

Yeah. And I've noted it so many times because I actually listen we all know that I'm. That I'm just little, Little, little dumpster gal. And I had no idea what Norma Kamali is. And then I just kept seeing it in books. I looked it up. Now I own a couple of their dresses because some of them are affordable. But, yeah, Norma Kamali made her string bikini that was purple that she wore on the COVID of Cosmo that, like, really blew up and caused a stir. But Norma Kamal over these books, and she also designs her wedding dress to Billy Joel. And I haven't been noting it every time I read Norma in a book, but now I'll make sure to, because she's everywhere. It's also an indication that we are reading a book about New York wealth whenever Norma comes up. So, like, Jennifer Gray, Anna Marie Tendler, like, Anna Marie Tendler has three Norma Kamali references in the book. So that's where, you know, like, when Anna Marie Tindler referenced a Norma Kamali sleeping bag coat within the first few pages. And I said, that code is 900. Because I'm on the emailing list now. You know, I get her. I get the emails. I want to know when the deals are okay. So she's blowing up. She is on 11 magazine covers at the same time. She goes to St. Bart's and she's like, Saint Barts. Well, I always have a special place in my life. St. Bart's has a special, magical place in my life. And I said, oh, my God. And then what's tough about Christy is that she's so sweet and she's such a heart of gold that there are no less than seven incidents in this book where she describes something a man does. And I said, that's a con. And she says she always follows it up with. He seems so sincere. I believed him. Here's the first con. She meets a man who's so handsome, and he confesses to her that he only had sex once, but it went really poorly. And he's wondering if she could be the person who gets him to know what good sex is and teach him. And she's like, you got it, babe. And maybe he cries.

[A]

I don't know. I think he does cry. I think he cries.

[B]

But that's a beautiful con. Great job. Although if you're. If you have to cry every time, that would be exhausting, sir.

[A]

True, true, true, true.

[B]

Were she sure or it was real? I don't know. What do you think?

[A]

That's where she was. Like, she had just been divorced and was starting to spice it up a little bit. And I was like, okay, like a supermodel sex Sherpa. Here we go.

[B]

Like, okay, supermodel sex Sherpa. Yeah, I know. A supermodel sex Sherpa wears a Norma Kamali sleeping bag coat. That's what I know. And they just shimmy around. Well, she also starts dating this photographer who. This is why I don't do audiobooks. I really do need to read with a pen in my hand because I just have his name as Olay. Does that seem like what it was? I know he's somewhat famous, so if anyone's like super into fashion right now, they're laughing at me.

[A]

Oh, Pierre.

[B]

Pierre Oulet.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

Hools is how I'd pronounce it as a country girl.

[B]

Peter Huls Olay. So she starts sleeping with Ulay and she's like, I'm in love with him. And then she finds out that he's cheating on her with a woman named.

[A]

Valerie, even though she did Sherpa sex that guy while she was dating this.

[B]

Or on a break or something. It's like she discovered Valerie and then Sherpa and then went back to him and she was just really trying to make it work, but she couldn't get over him cheating on her, which is like you. Yeah. It also sounds like she knew Valerie because later she calls her and they meet up on the beach and smoke cigarettes and talk shit about him. And then they both finally dump Ole forever.

[A]

It's like there's a friend.

[B]

See?

[A]

See how positive?

[B]

Oh, yeah, that's nice. I wish she and Valerie would have like become besties.

[A]

One cigarette and she learns her lesson and breaks up. Like, there's something there. Chris. Chris.

[B]

There's something there. There's something. There is something there. Sasha Mandarin. Now she loves boxing and she's a supermodel and she sees Muhammad Ali across a room or something and goes running. Is like, I love you. And they get her tickets ringside to Muhammad Ali's final fight where she wears like a hot pink head to toe, feathery, sparkly outfit and is a photographer ringside and gets the most iconic shot from the fight when he is punched in the face and loses. But she's also a supermodel. Where was your brain at when this part of the book happened?

[A]

My mouth was really dry because my jaw was on the floor. I'm just like, what this? But I thought you were Miss Ocean Girl. Like, what are these?

[B]

And she'd really learned about it from Ulay.

[A]

That's right.

[B]

Who's really into boxing. That's Right. Then she, like, ends up, like, hosting, like, little fight shows. I don't know if I'll be able to find the photos, but all I want are photos of her in whatever hot pink outfit taking photos of Muhammad Ali at his final fight. Okay. Yeah. So at this point, I wrote, oh, my God, we're almost at the end of the book, and it's only 1982. This is when I was like, wait, there's three hours left in the audiobook, and it is 1982. What the fuck? So I will say these last three hours are when the book got really.

[A]

Good for me even reading it, it was, like, kind of a lot because there's also just so much information. You're just trying to be like, okay, noted. Okay. Okay. And then you can just kind of, like, go for it.

[B]

Yeah. And this is what some of the writing is like. Loneliness is the ocean tide, and lessons are the seashells left behind. And that is every sentence. Okay, so she meets a millionaire race car driver named Olivier.

[A]

An heir.

[B]

An heir.

[A]

The champagne heir.

[B]

I mean, come on, is that not the most 90s sentence? The champagne millionaire heir, who's a race car driver, for funsies. And his name is Olivier.

[A]

Olivier.

[B]

And they have a wild romance, but also he cheats. And then she can't get over it. But then she takes him back and they're writing love letters. And then here's my note from that chapter where she's, like, in Italy, going back and forth with Olivier. It's Italy, right? We're traveling, we're hopping.

[A]

We're all over the place. We're there together.

[B]

They were there together. Well, here's my note from the chapter. Not an accent on mozzarella. She was like, we would go to this restaurant and get mozzarella with fresh toast, and Olivier and I would eat the mozzarella. What? I do love some mozzarella. I love a mozzarella on some spaghetti, though. Nicole, I gotta tell you, whenever that's an option, that's my favorite. The best restaurants, supper in New York City. You can get a big ball of mozzarella on top of your spaghetti. And it's really good. Oh, there was just so many moments where I was like, oh, a model is also a personality that, like, there's no amount of surgery or anything I could ever go through to be a model, because I would still have the personality of a demon inside my body. Like, I just. She's just so cool and fun and light.

[A]

Yeah. Just flits around in, I think, way too. She Never, like, overthinks anything, which I do like her. Like, she definitely. Yes. Ends her way through all these decades, which I don't dislike. I think that's a good, you know, within reason.

[B]

Not Usain to improv through life.

[A]

Improv through life. Like, that's. There's people who don't do that, and they're bummers. But she had a little too much.

[B]

Maybe It's a lot. She's like. And then things were over with Olivier, and I was like, but how did it end with him? And we'll get to it. So. So some of the writing's odd, but basically she gets her first film where she is going to be the hot girl in the red Corvette in Chevy Chase's film National Lampoon Vacation. And she said, I even did all my own driving and took driving lessons to be the driver as I played the hot girl. Do you remember who gave her driving lessons?

[A]

Was it Chevy?

[B]

It was Al Frank. Oh, my God.

[A]

That's right.

[B]

I said, yeah, I bet he gave you driving lessons. This isn't even a trained driver. What do you mean, out? Yeah. Al Franken was like, I'll teach you to drive. Like, bro, what do you mean you took driving lessons from Al Franken? Is he some, like, master Jay Leno denim shirt car man that I don't know about?

[A]

The 80s were so scary.

[B]

Just like, okay, but listen, she's a great driver for being able to act and drive for that shot.

[A]

She probably got some sort of bump and pay for a stunt driver.

[B]

Yep. So then she comes back to it where she's at a shoe in St. Bart's and the night before she meets Billy Joel, she ends it with Olivier, who cheated. And this is when loneliness is the ocean tide and lessons are the seashells left behind. I wrote travel blog as memoir. And when she meets Billy Joel, he is sunburnt to a crisp. She's like, his skin is so red, it's, like, painful to look at him. And so, of course, to woo her at St. Bart's he finds a piano in this old bar and he motions for her to join. I love this story so much. Okay, so he's already the piano man. He's already got a lot of fame. Everyone can't believe Billy Joel is there. She meets him because whoever she's with was like, billy Joel is on St. Bart's Island. Like, we gotta go. So he motions for her to join him on the piano bench in this bar where everyone is there because sunburnt Billy Joel is there and he says, christie Brinkley, what would you like to hear me play? And she says, the Girl from Ipanema so I can sing it. And Billy Joel plays the song while she sings. I said, they must have wanted to kill you.

[A]

She's lucky to be alive. You are lucky.

[B]

And meanwhile, that's how much he wanted it. He was like, sure, man. I'm. Listen, I'm trying to play Piano man for you, so you will date me despite being as red as a lobster right now, but if I need to play for you to sing. And in retrospect, it's actually like a very sweet meet cute moment. And this is my. My favorite story in the whole book. She says, then a girl with cafe au lait skin said, how. And y' all. Okay, I'm just. I'm just gonna make it through the story so we can really come back to how crazy it is that she said this, steps forward and says, you know, I can sing too. And Billy later told Christy he was thinking, like, scram, scram, kid. I'm trying to woo Christie Brinkley. But to, like, be nice. He's like, okay, you can say, what do you want? What do you want me to play? And she's like, Aretha Franklin's respect. And he plays it, and this girl blows them the away. They're like, this is. Oh, my God, you really can sing. It's Whitney Houston. Everybody just take a lap. Okay? Take a walk around your living room. If you're driving, slow down, get off the exit, and scream, it's Whitney Houston. Houston in St. Bart's never. She's never said why. She did say she was undiscovered. I need to. I. Does your Excel spreadsheet have what year they say?

[A]

Yes. Yes, it does.

[B]

Oh, my God. Thank you. Thank you.

[A]

I was like, how does one get to St. Bart's if you're not discovered? It was one of my questions. This is 1983.

[B]

Okay, let's look up. Okay. Yeah. Whitney's debut single, you, Give Good Love, was released in February 1985. Wow.

[A]

It says that she was a model.

[B]

So Whitney had a modeling contract. Okay, so maybe she was actually, like, part of the exact same shoe and maybe she didn't know it. Or are there just, like, multiple model shoots in Saint Barts at all times?

[A]

There must just be models galore.

[B]

Okay, so our producer Christina just came in and said she signed her first record deal in. In April 1983 with Arista Records when Clive Davis signed her, which I do know from the multiple Whitney documentaries that I've watched. So that would mean that, like, she's about to be signed either, right when she's singing this.

[A]

Because this is happening in January of 1983.

[B]

Oh, my God. You had it in your Excel spreadsheet. Oh, my God. So then four months later, she is signed for the first time. So in the middle of this, they're in St. Bart's she's doing a modeling gig and is like, excuse me, sir. I can sing too. Now let's just circle back to her saying, a girl with cafe au lait skin and it. And she was talking about Whitney Houston. I don't know why that's so insane to me.

[A]

We never need it, do we?

[B]

We definitely never need it. You especially don't need it when you are about to reveal that it's Whitney Houston. Like, we don't need those remarks about Whitney Houston. It's the same thing of, like, no one else's skin tone was mentioned throughout. She's not like. And then me. Creme sugar.

[A]

I think in her French improv brain, cafe au lait is the best compliment you can give because it's French word.

[B]

That's. And that's just. Oh, because the words are French. I mean, but it's just so many. It's so many layers of up. I know she's not even aware of it. I think that's what makes me mad. She is fully unaware, but also, like, I'm just like, oh, the ghostwriter and editors just didn't even have the courage to be like, actually. Or fuck. Maybe they thought that was fine, too. So anyways, then you're not gonna believe this, you guys. Elle McPherson walks in, and who does Billy Joel go home with that night? Elle McPherson and Christy Brinkley goes home with a ship captain named Clay or something. Clay. That's right, Clay. And then they're, like, all on St. Bart's and, like, Elle is chasing Billy. Billy's chasing Christy. Christy is chasing Clay, the ship captain. And then she goes back and gets back together with Olivier, who then, very sadly, his race car, like, goes off into the water, and he dies, like, a month later.

[A]

She wakes up on her birthday in February with Clay on a boat, flies back the next day, gets back with Olivier. March 2, I believe he's killed.

[B]

That is horrifying.

[A]

Everything happens so rapidly with her. It's so wild.

[B]

Like, yes, because it's at this point she wrote, I was 29 years old. And so it's been four years post her divorce. And yes, everything happens so fast because I wrote down One of the sentences, it's like the sun and the saltwater with clay, the frothy sea, green waves crashing against the boat. On my birthday, she flies home. She reads love letters that Olivier had left in their shared apartment but that he'd never sent to her. This is why she gets back together with him, despite the fact that he cheated. But one of the letters, this was the sentence I like, I hope you're taking care of yourself down in St. Barts, because the mosquitoes and bugs could bite your little body. But that was one of the pieces of the letter she said hundreds of letters that she was so moved by that she printed it verbatim. And what's nuts is that Billy has been calling her while she's back together with Olivier, forming a great friendship and.

[A]

Calling her from the Grammys.

[B]

Yeah. And I said, this man's pulling out.

[A]

All the stuffs was, where's the landline at a Grammys.

[B]

Did he have, like, one of the first cell phones?

[A]

He must have.

[B]

Was there a payphone at backstage at the Grammys?

[A]

Because it had to be the first cell phone because, oh, I would love.

[B]

A scene in a movie of Billy Joel holding a phone the size of a wing back chair calling Christie Brinkley. I'm at the Grammys. Please fuck me. Here's Ray Charles playing. Can you hear him? Please have sex with me.

[A]

Incredible.

[B]

And this is where I'm like, christy, oh, we were just such good friends on the phone. And this is when I said, there's so many cons that she writes sincerely, where she says, when she loses Olivier, Billy calls her and is like, if you ever need someone to talk to, I'm here for you. Which is the classic line that the person says at the funeral to the widow so that they can marry them. And she's like, and I do need someone to talk to. So she starts talking to Billy Joel every day, and he helps her get over Olivier, and they start dating.

[A]

And they start dating where he asks her out in early April.

[B]

Okay, so please do the dates for us. Check the Excel spreadsheet.

[A]

January, break up with Olivier. January, St. Barts. January into February. Clay Captain. February, back with Olivier. March, 2nd. Olivier passes early April madly in love with Billy Joel.

[B]

Thank you so much for this math. This is why she didn't want us to have the dates. Because when you have to really look at that. And I. I had the same experience. Like, when you really have to, like, timeline your life, certain things will blow you the fuck away. Now, mine were not stacking men like I was playing Jenga. But this explains so much of her decisions. In love, where it's like, you are swinging on one. You're. Beth selling had this joke where she's, like, swinging in the jungle from dick to dick with relationships. Like, she doesn't let go of one dick until she's, like, firmly got the other dick in hand.

[A]

Genius.

[B]

And, yeah, I mean, whatever gets you through the day. Billy Joel sends her flowers every day, sometimes multiple times a day. There's diamond bracelets. Every time she goes out to a restaurant, the waiters come out singing Happy Birthday because Billy called to tell them it was her birthday. Man. If you're listening, I think this is great game. Yeah. I think anyone can pull this playbook, and it would probably work. Should I write a dating book? Get a lot of money. We see. Listen, these are the problems of society. Get money, call the restaurant every day, tell them it's her birthday, every time she goes out. Seems fun.

[A]

Done. Now, when I went back to read the beginning after understanding this ending, that first time Don Brinkley shows up and takes her mom out, he brought her a purse, like, a toy purse with, like, high heels. And it's the first, like, gift she's ever gotten from this man who is.

[B]

Because also, her. Her biological father never gave gifts.

[A]

And then a few months later, he came and she had. They had, like, a dinky little Christmas tree. He came in, replaced the tree and filled it with gifts. And I went, wow, light bulb. This is where you are immune to this love bombing and are looking for these signs of love, like how dawn showed up for your mom and you. Unfortunately, they don't make them, like. They don't make them like Dawn. They maybe only made Brinkley.

[B]

They only made one Dawn Brinkley.

[A]

I think there might just be one. And it made it all make a lot more sense of, like, she couldn't see it.

[B]

It.

[A]

She just simply couldn't.

[B]

I think that is fantastic analysis. You're so right. Because throughout the book, I'm like, she cannot see a red flag if it was being jousted through her eyeballs.

[A]

No, no, no.

[B]

Like, you're right. And. And these gifts. And I. I said it would work as a dating book because I think, unfortunately, a lot of people would be like, yay, this is so fun and fun, and obviously, we know how it's gonna go. But wild is that he has been dating Elle McPherson. L was 19. He is, of course, 33. He then forces Christy. Forces, I don't know, invites Christy aggressively to be on the. The Line on the phone. Line as he breaks up with Elle. Right. And I think Christy is saying this because there were rumors that she stole him from Elle McPherson and that they were feuding and hated each other. And in the book, she says Elle sounds it indifferent. He's still burnt.

[A]

He's still sunburnt.

[B]

We.

[A]

I'm not into.

[B]

I don't care.

[A]

I had to peel him two weeks ago.

[B]

I'm still healing from that burn, baby. It's sick.

[A]

Take him. Please.

[B]

Take him. Oh. And she does. And you know, she and Billy Joel are gonna be married for nine years. She was already famous, but this is now skyrockets. This couple skyrockets. It's their. Both their fame and hers for sure. Then she talks about the origin of Uptown Girl, and that's the title of this book. We all know she's in the music video. She lets us know she's the Uptown Girl multiple times before Billy even enters the book. Like I said, he's in the last three hours. Uptown Girl is a big part of her personality. But she says he didn't originally write it about her. And this is again where I can't be listening to audiobooks because for a long time I thought. And for a long time, I mean, until I went and grabbed the book, to be like, this can't be true. I thought the story she said is that Whitney Houston called him from her and basically prayed. She used this sentence, like, preyed on Billy's empathy to be like, I am just a really hot girl in Uptown. My parents won't let me out because I'm, like, too hot to walk the street with commoners. And then he would try and see her and she would never show up. And then it turns out this girl that Whitney was calling all kinds of musicians and being like, a mysterious hot girl who, quote, gives good phone.

[A]

Yes. Which was.

[B]

Gave her.

[A]

Even reading the book, I had to double check that she wasn't talking about Whitney Houston.

[B]

Wouldn't it be better if it was Whitney Houston was the Uptown Girl? I said, please. Yeah. I was like, she got his number from St. Barts. Why? These are little mistakes where you're like, how fast was the book written? Because when you all had to make up a fake name, you didn't realize that you were just writing about Houston and the first name you thought of was Whitney.

[A]

Celebrity names. There's only a handful of people that she talks about outside of, like, her immediate life story. And she chose Whitney. Yeah. Very, very bizarre.

[B]

Yeah. Yeah. Very, very weird. And then she's like, oh. But then when he met me, I really was the uptown girl, even though she's a California girl, but she was like, oh, but I went to prep school. He went to public school. I don't know, things like that. Here's my note from the first chapter with Billy. I said, they love boats so much.

[A]

Boating.

[B]

They love boats. A lot of boating.

[A]

I. I wrote.

[B]

I guess it didn't stick.

[A]

I was like, these jokes are not for my tax bracket. Like, I just simply do not know.

[B]

What these words, what you're talking about.

[A]

Which is fine, but it's like.

[B]

She's like, oh. And then we were in a. Some kind of, I don't know, pontoon. I don't even know. I'm in a. Blah, blah. And we came up, and the Coast Guard was laughing. They said, billy, where's your yacht? And they couldn't believe this was the boat that we'd been at sea in, going up to the Hamptons as Billy steered us through the waves. And I was just like, what the is this life? And she said, we got engaged. Billy's smile was just like the diamond he had given her. Rays of sun burst out of both of them. And for Christmas, he gave her a white horse the color of fallen snow. Just like Bianca for Christmas, he gave her a horse.

[A]

I mean, not. No.

[B]

Yeah, you're right.

[A]

No, not. No.

[B]

Not at this point.

[A]

What do you get a girl like this?

[B]

What do you get the uptown girl? Yeah, basically, they've moved to Hamptons, where they found their dream house that they bought from a man who was so anti Semitic that he wrote in the deed of the house he had died. But, like, in the deed or his will, he said, no one who is Jewish or in entertainment could buy this house. That's how up this man was. And Billy Joel, who was both, was like, I will have this haunted house. And I don't know if I was happy for them to. For buying it, though, because I'm like, there are not enough crystals in the world.

[A]

I felt the same way to get.

[B]

That energy out of the house, where.

[A]

Part of me is like, yeah, we showed him. But then also, you want. That energy is in there that, like, yikes.

[B]

But then who. The house renovation lasts five years. More than half their marriage. They are living in the guest house in the front while the big house is being renovated. It's. I just wrote, what a waste.

[A]

Yeah. I mean, it created jobs.

[B]

Wow. You know what? Way to see the light. They created jobs in the Hamptons. You're right. And this is another one of my favorite anecdotes from the book. They're about to eat oysters and champagne, and she said, you know what? Let me call my doctor. And she calls and she says, ring a ding ding. You know how I saw you a few days ago? Am I pregnant? I'm about to have champagne and oysters, and they said, you are pregnant. Christy better not eat them oysters. And that's how she finds out she's pregnant with Alexa Ray. And he boats home very carefully that night, which does sound like a bottle. Boat it up to the champagne and oysters place.

[A]

Not.

[B]

No, listen, not. No. I don't even like oysters. But I just put a lot. Put a lot of ketchup and crackers on it, and I'd suck it down if it meant that I needed to take on this life. So then she's like, we had to. To quit smoking because we're having a baby.

[A]

That's right.

[B]

Got some more psychic moments here. She quit smoking from hypnotism. But hypnotism doesn't work on Billy Joel. He gets his aura changed. How do you think you change an aura? I don't know.

[A]

Maybe like, a tuning fork, which he had, I'm sure, plenty of. A little Reiki, a little oyster.

[B]

Sure, yeah. Okay. Yeah, I like that. I think they, like, called Poseidon and, like, through the Waves. They're like, shake it out of him. Shake the smoking out. Yeah, they quit smoking, and she has Alexa Ray, and she loses that baby weight with memoir crossover Jane Fonda workout videos, which my favorite fun fact, she did those workout videos so that she could fund her democratic husband's campaigns for them. For them to, like, do good in the world. That was the only reason she did her workout videos, which my sad, fun fact is that she maybe stole them from a friendship breakup.

[A]

She had brats.

[B]

Like, it was another woman whose workout she was like, this is. Let's do it. But then it just became Jane Fonda's workout. We still love her, though. She acknowledged it in the book. Okay, so the Billy Joel marriage goes awry in multiple ways. One, he has a clear alcoholism problem, and he's drinking in intense ways. But then his manager, Frank, who is his ex wife's brother, quietly steals $30 million from him. And I guess he'd looked at him like a father figure, and so it kind of broke Billy, and she said he never came back to the person she knew him to be after this was discovered. And he gets so stressed trying to write more hit songs to recoup some of the money he lost and that. What is his album like? His album. His final album he makes in the marriage. And she painted the album cover for it. And the album is the river of Dreams. And one thing we missed is that when she wanted to be an artist in Paris, she really was. She really. She can draw. She's an artist. And she would draw for, like, little brands to make her money until she realized as a model, you could make way more. And she actually draws the album cover for the river of Dreams, which she says makes the best of and worst of album list.

[A]

I love that.

[B]

Which I thought was cute. But she said alcohol was the other woman in their marriage. And while he goes to alcohol, I wrote she becomes horse woman. She goes full horse girl, cowboy in the Hamptons. Okay. But she's, like, really into cowboy stuff. She's reading cowboy romance novels. She's wearing cowboy clothes. And then there was, like, a chapter about, like, learning to cut with their quarter horses. And all the gals in the Hamptons got in on it. And I said, I just. This chapter's not for me.

[A]

It's that cosplay of Southwestern, which is. I mean, there are worse things you can get into.

[B]

And Billy got into him. So now. Not to mention she said alcohol was the other woman in our marriage. However, multiple times, she tells stories of Billy obviously cheating on her. And she says, but he said he didn't. Yeah. And I believed him. Until one time, she confronts him, and they're in Hawaii. He leaves in a rage. Cause she's confronted him about cheating. He goes and gets drunk. She has locked him out of the hotel room, but they are on the ground floor, and he throws a chaise lounge through the glass windows. And what happens next?

[A]

They stay together, and she covers for him. She feels like she can't. Like, if he's going missing out drinking, probably cheating. And she's like, I can't even. I can't call the police because they're too famous. It'll start a whole story, which is also terrifying.

[B]

Yeah. And at this point, she's also written, like, our home rose up like Venus from her seashell. That was a sentence. But then, like, their marriage is. Yeah. Is ending and going to shit. And in the middle of this, just quickly, they go to Frank Sinatra's hotel room with his wife Barbara. And Frank walks in drunk and is like, who the fuck is in here? Get the fuck out. And she was like, frank Sinatra was a dick to me and Billy Joel, which was really funny. But I wrote, we Gotta check on Barbara.

[A]

Yeah, Barbara, you know.

[B]

Cause they were like, we just left the room and it's like, don't leave him in the room with Barbara.

[A]

But then later she found him at a bar and he like, chanted her name and everything was fine.

[B]

Sure, Old blue eyes. Now she gets in this heli skiing helicopter accident right at the end of her marriage with Billy where she's hoping that, like, maybe it'll bring them back together. But the man who had taken her on the heli skiing trip was this guy named Ricky who had all these incredible stories, who her friend Bonnie had the crush on, who somehow Christy just swoops in. But also it turns out she like, took the knife for Bonnie. Like, Bonnie.

[A]

It's true.

[B]

Bonnie really dodged. Dodged a piece of here because Ricky has all these, like, amazing stories and he has so much money and he's like the king of Colorado and. And he thinks they should go on this helicopter trip. She basically copy pastes the first chapter about the helicopter crash. Because I was like, we have heard all of this before.

[A]

It's like Madame Web, where we get to see that scene again, pretty much. And again, completely the same. I went back and forth to see if she, like, missed any details because.

[B]

Yeah, I was like, what? What the hell are we doing here? But then she adds details where, like, they're stuck up on this mountain in this storm and they think they're gonna die there. There's someone else's kid is on the trip and she finds the kid and, like, crazy stuff is happening. She finds a disposable camera in the snow. And I wrote this takes a selfie up on the mountain. And I was making fun of her. I was like. And she said she did it to cheer the kid up and to be like, hey, you can tell all your friends at school tomorrow that you were crashed on a mountain with model Chrissy Brinkley and this will be your proof. And I was like, wow, how are we selfieing right now? And then later, she sells the photos to magazines and gives all the money back to everyone who saves them. So I was like, okay, joke's on me. I'm a stupid. Because that was very smart. Monetize. Always be branding. Get that money where you can, ladies. And there's so much trauma after this that when Billy Joel picks her up out of the hospital bed, puts her on a private plane, she thinks he's going to save her and they're going to get back together. He's going to realize he can't live without her because she almost died on the private plane. She hears him on a phone with another woman saying, don't worry, I'm not getting back with her. I just have to, like, make sure she's lives. And so when Ricky calls her from the hospital bed and is like, I just can't stop thinking about you. I think we're supposed to be together. In the throes of PTSD from this crash, she goes to Ricky's hospital bed, where he is hooked up to machines and is barely alive, and they have sex in the hospital bed.

[A]

We cannot miss the way she starts this chapter that we hadn't even kissed yet. Why hadn't they kissed? Because it appears he was on a ventilator.

[B]

And this is a metaphor for her starting a marriage where she's got a do all the work. Because I really thought about it. I said, how the are you having sex in a hospital bed when he gets hooked up to machines? I said, oh, there's really only one way, and you're really. It's on you, Christy.

[A]

It's shocking.

[B]

It's shocking. She. And I will say she gets swindled by this. She does.

[A]

And she does admit this one. She does.

[B]

Oh.

[A]

Throughout where she's like, I. I ate it up hook, line, and sinker. And I'm like, thank God you can see this one now. And can you?

[B]

At least now. But here's some of the red flags she skipped past. He invites her to go to dinner with a Coke brother, right? And she took this as a sign that he really was rich and had money and all his stories were true. Rather than maybe, don't trust a man who's friends with a Coke brother. Here was the other red flag that she doesn't seem to still know about. He told her about how he wanted to start a women's shelter for domestic violence victims in Colorado and Telluride, and he was naming it tomboy shelter. I personally have never seen a bigger red flag for a human personality than that being the choice for your DV shelter name. But okay. And one month, one. So she's like, please, Billy Joel, take me back. Whoops, he's not. I'm going, I'm having sex with this man. Before kissing him while he still in the hospital bed from this crash. And one month later, they are engaged. And two days later, he asks her for $75,000. And it's another year before she gets out of this relationship. And by the time she's out of the relationship, listeners take a guess. How much money did she Give him. How much money did model Christy Brinkley lend her very rich fiance? $2 million.

[A]

It's upsetting.

[B]

This.

[A]

This era.

[B]

Not yes, not yes. Nicole. I like, I'm really trying to think, like. And she says, she's like, I think I was literally psychotic from this crash. And I truly believed. And you know what? I said, this is JLo. Because JLo wrote about this too. Her marriage to Ben Affleck breaks up like two days before this giant dove filled million dollar wedding. And she runs into Mark Anthony, who one time years ago had said, I'm gonna marry you. Which I'm again, this is a common con, okay? Common con. And she said, oh, maybe I broke up with Ben Affleck because you casually tried to me years ago with this line, maybe I'm supposed to marry Mark Anthony. And then worked really hard to make it work. And she really just. We're just. Men are band Aids. And Christy Brinkley was like, oh, maybe I had to lose my marriage to Billy Joel and get in this helicopter accident because I am men to be with sticky Ricky, who. But I said, an entire year of your life, this man is borrowing money and not repaying you. And her mom, her dad, beg her not to get married. Her friends won't attend the wedding because they don't believe in it. And the day after the wedding, her mom says, please annul this marriage. And she doesn't listen. And then a month later, divorces him or. Or files for divorce.

[A]

It goes back to needing a girlfriend throughout. Needing girlfriends.

[B]

Yeah. And like when your girlfriends refuse to come to the wedding, it is a sign.

[A]

But if you don't have that rapport with them, because I would kidnap you. Thank you.

[B]

You know what I mean? Not only would I be like, I'm not coming. I'd be like, ladies, get your masks on. Everyone get a burner. We've got work to do.

[A]

But it goes back to Dawn. Dawn, from this eight year old's eyes, swooped in and saved her mom from Herb.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And she's like, maybe this is the dawn. Oh, maybe this is the dawn. Oh, maybe this is the dawn. This is the dawn.

[B]

Yeah. A couple of crazy things, as I said. So she and Billy Joel announced their divorce shortly after the crash, which means two weeks after her divorce announced. Two weeks after her divorce announcement to Billy Joel, she was engaged to Ricky. Now I gotta give it to him. Sounds like a phenomenal wedding. It's on the ski slopes. The poles. The ski poles they were gonna use that survived the crash were their altar and Then they got us a famous skier who looked like Christie Brinkley. Basically, they got married, and Christie Brinkley skied down the mountain in her wedding dress and then. And switched places with this pro skier who then backflipped in skis in a wedding dress down the hill as everyone was like, is that Christie Brinkley? And I said, that's phenomenal. Phenomenal wedding prank.

[A]

Truly, truly.

[B]

I loved it. I 1010 of weddings. Now, I will say I looked up their wedding photos, and he's giving a thumbs up in all the photos, which, again, I'm like, nothing is more of a red flag than a man giving a thumbs up of, like, I got her. And then she said, despite them almost dying in a helicopter crash, he then took them on scary adventures where, like, she almost drowns in whitewater rafting, and he just, like, keeps trying to kill her. And I was like, oh, he. I think he really was trying to kill her. I think he was like, we're engaged. I'm your husband. If she dies, I get all her money. Because then she's pregnant, she has their child, and he makes friends. This man calls up Herb. Herb, who she has not spoken to her entire life, basically says, how did you do it? Calls up Christy and says, I'm gonna do what Herb did. I'll make you a deal. And you can tell the NDA comes in right there. Because he then relinquishes paternity to their son, just like Herb did to her, and leaves her life forever for, I'm sure, an amount of money and an NDA, and he's gone forever. And their son Jack never has Ricky as his father, which I'm for. The best, might be more positive than negative, but, like, the fact that it happened to her in two ways, of a man going to court being like, no thanks to this child. Is that Groundhog's Day?

[A]

It's Groundhog Day. It's such a crazy thing to do. And for it to happen twice, like, it's heartbreaking.

[B]

And she also. She names her child, like, was it August River?

[A]

Yes, it was.

[B]

Yes. And then the news makes fun of it, so she retracts the name and names him Jack Paris. Right? Which I gotta say, is it great? Like, oh, you're like, oh, instant rock star name. Despite my feelings on Paris and Paris.

[A]

Because it's after Paris Hilton. In your eye.

[B]

Nice. Yes. Much better. Listeners, take a guess who is Jack's godfather. It's Billy Joel. He's the hero of the book. Oh, and listen, I think people have heard really Bad things about Billy Joel. But in this book, this is actually our best man, and we're grading on a curve. This is our best. Billy is our best.

[A]

It makes you go, oh, he. His brain did break with the manager stealing the money because he is capable of showing up in the way he needs to for the people he loves. He. His brain was just broken for that period of time.

[B]

Yeah. Yeah, that's a really good point.

[A]

He was actually just diagnosed with a rare brain condition.

[B]

Oh, man. Okay. Yeah, well, that's. Yeah, it's a lot. No, no, but I mean, listen. Billy being Alexis's biological father, but then the godfather to her son Jack is like. I don't know. I just thought it was. I was like, wow, that is really beautiful. And also, he is the husband who gets photos in the photo section. Like, the other husbands are not there, but Billy is there, and Jean Valjean is there as well, and Olivier is there, even though he's not a husband. And so she's like, you know what? I've got my Maybelline contract. I've got this, like, Barbie doll I've made. I've got some, like, things going on. And Cher did infomercials, and so I figured I should too, as long as I believed in the product. And this is where Total Gym comes in, where she did the infomercials with Chuck Norris forever and sold Total Gym. She doesn't mention that Cher was, like, lambasted for those infomercials, which I both loved and didn't love, where I was like, do you know? And you're being kind? Or like, you don't know? Because in Cher's memoir, she's, like, one of the worst things I've ever done. And it was so painful how everyone made fun of me, but. But it inspired Christy, and she said, cher's the queen of comebacks. I'm gonna come back. I'm gonna do this. And then in two sentences, she meets Peter and marries him. Yep. Two sentence Peter.

[A]

And it's also quick in that Ricky officially gives up Jack, I believe, in December of 1995. Okay. And she meets Peter. April 1996.

[B]

No.

[A]

And is married September 21, 1996, to Peter.

[B]

No, I really. The way it was written in the book, I thought, like, five or six years had passed.

[A]

It's so fast.

[B]

I mean, she just. And she says it in the book, like, sometimes life makes you learn the same lesson by just, like, running you over with it because she refuses to learn it. Like, stop getting married fast.

[A]

Just.

[B]

Just slow the Engagement down.

[A]

Just sit down for a little bit. Just sit down. Give it one year, three months, like, come.

[B]

Like, it's also really hard to plan a wedding. Give it some time. Yeah. That is insane. And I mean, the way she. She's like, you know, wasn't attracted to him when I met him second time, I was like, well, you know, my type hasn't been working out for me. I really need a dad for Jack. And he adopts Jack. And I'm like, no, he adopted Jack. And again, she's looking for Don because Don adopted her. And I mean, things are quick. She's like, peter really wanted me to get pregnant, which was hard at 44. I was like. Like, yeah, this. Okay, this is rude of Peter. But then she said, I had a couple painful miscarriages, and one of them, she had needed abortion care. She's like, everyone should be able to have this care. Like, I didn't even think about how lucky I was that, like, I had this miscarriage and I didn't die because of it because I had health care. And then she also says, everyone should have access to ivf, which she also used with Peter, but the IVF isn't what worked. She then conceives and has her third child, who she was going to name Captain Cook if it was a boy, because Peter's last name is Cook, but named. It was a girl. So she named her sailor Cook, but Captain Cook. And she didn't think of Captain Hook.

[A]

No.

[B]

You know, Cap. The famous Captain Hook. But she was like, yeah, it'll be Captain Cook. So God said, then I'm giving you a girl. And then, yeah, pretty quickly she's like. And then this old man comes up to me and is like, your arrogant husband is my teenage daughter. Can you tell him to stop? Which I guess this man was out of options because, yeah, I assume he went to Peter first. I hope, surely, because otherwise, what a way to find out about the affair.

[A]

And she's like, on stage. So having to, like.

[B]

Yeah, she's hold it together on stage for. What was she on stage at?

[A]

Like, a commencement speech?

[B]

Okay.

[A]

That.

[B]

She was like. It's like, how did he get in range of her? Why is he choosing this one? This man sounds like a. He sounds like a wretched man who would raise a daughter who was like, I should heal my wretched old man. Daddy issues with this other old man. Yeah, Peter. Apparently, this is why the book is so difficult, too, because she's like, I'm married to Peter. And then she's like, apparently he called me the cash cow in his office. She's like, I paid for everything, every single thing. And then she said, I plugged in his phone once I heard this and started printing out his photos. And the. The printer was just, like, shooting out beaver shots because he had been just so catastrophically cheating on her. Yeah. And again, like, she's cheated on again. And it's always in these intense ways, and she never knows it. In every single story, except for a couple, someone else is like, hey, he's cheating on you. Like, Brian with Johnny's like, hey, he's cheating on you. Her friends are like, hey, Billy Joel is cheating on you. This old man is like, hey, Peter's cheating on you. She's not like, I think something's up. Okay, so, Nicole, did you look up Peter's teenage bride?

[A]

I did not.

[B]

So I. I put these photos on the Instagram story. I will try and remember to put them on the Patreon. No, Christina, our beautiful producer, please remind me to put these photos on the Patreon. How do I say this? So when I was looking up photos of him and this girl who, at the time of the photos, she's 20. And I think he was trying to say she was 21, which makes me think maybe she was actually 18. They're dressed in these hideous Hampton horsing outfits. And the only way to explain it is that as I literally just scrolled to find photos of her, and I found six. This girl goes through a top to bottom plastic surgery transformation. No. By the time you get to their wedding photo, you are looking at the same girl who has had, like, a crazy amount of work done. And she goes from being a girl who is basically Jamie Lynn Spears doppelganger, to looking like one of the moms on the Mormon Wives of Tick Tock. Like, all of their faces congealed into one Instagram face.

[A]

What? And this is the girl he was cheating on her with.

[B]

Okay, so it turns out, y' all, the girl who I just referenced, who I found, is the latest wife in Peter Cook's Wives. He's, of course, 70. She is, they're saying 21 at this point. When I found these photos, he had cheated on Christy Brinkley with a entirely different young woman. Years ago. Christie Brinkley, in court had this famous quote where she told the woman, I will be here for you when he does the same thing to you. The woman at the time, of course, ignored her. Then later, when Peter cheated on her with even younger women, she told Christy Brinkley through public apology I'm so sorry for not listening to you. She then accused Peter Cook. I'm paraphrasing. Of having, like, a pathological, aggressive desire for younger women. Anyways, so Peter Cook cheated on Christy with a younger woman, then cheated on that younger woman with even younger women. And then his latest youngest woman, who he married is the girl I don't know is a 20 year old. Okay, back to the episode. And he. He looks. He's just such an old man next to this poor girl. Woman we need to check on.

[A]

Well, because, like, how do you follow Christy Brinkley? Of course you're gonna get plastic surgery.

[B]

I think what happened is the divorce happened and then they were like Peter's new gal. And then probably in these, the horrifying response to her photos. She got top to bottom.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

She got the swan.

[A]

Oh, gosh. Yes.

[B]

Love, Love. Referencing that old show. And then, like, we're almost at the end of the book where she's like, hey, Google, divorcing a narcissist. That was Peter. My daughter Alexa went through a heartbreak and had a homeopathic overdose. Yeah. What was that story?

[A]

That was interesting where I went, oh, and. And I don't want to take away from, like, people's struggle. Everyone's struggle is relative to everything.

[B]

Well, I kind of thought maybe she was playing it down because owning the truth about her daughter's depressive struggle was maybe too painful. Like, she was like, she never. She always knew taking this dose would never cause death. She knew that. But it was a cry for help. But it wasn't drugs. But don't worry, it was homeopathic. But I was like, what is this dance we're doing around whatever happened here?

[A]

Right. And then she started a foundation for, like, heartbreak related depression.

[B]

That's right.

[A]

And I was like, well, this is odd, but I think you might be right. I think that's the Hamptons white linen glaze on top of the real stuff.

[B]

Cause also, her daughter has grown up. So the headlines about her and Billy Joel would be the Beauty and the Beast. And Alexa Rae endured severe bullying and cruelty over not looking exactly like Christie Brankley. So there's just a lot there that's also, you know, maybe not her. Christie doesn't feel like it's her story to tell. But there's also this horrible photo in the book. Did you know what photo I'm talking about?

[A]

The look back.

[B]

Yeah. Where Christie Brinkley is on the beach posing. Any very naked and posed Alexis at like 4 years old is in the shot. And I was like, do we not know the dangers of putting your child out there like that?

[A]

I guess not. In 1988.

[B]

I also. I don't want to see a child posing like a model.

[A]

No, no.

[B]

Like that. I mean, this is. It's not 1988. When you.

[A]

You're right.

[B]

Print it in your 20. That's 25 memoir.

[A]

We've printed it again.

[B]

We've printed it again. I was just. I saw that photo. I was like, oh, okay, then. Then at the end of the book, Christy learns about Google, and she asked the Internet for thoughts and prayers. And the thoughts and prayers from the Internet cure her mom. When her mom has health crises and her mom experiences a miracle, that's another Dringo. And then Dawn Brinkley, her entire life had said, like, you write your own script, kid. And she kind of framed this book as a movie, the movie of her life. Click flash. Next scene. Then the minor arc would be, it's Groundhog's Day things repeating. Although that was not hit on enough. You actually drew that up out more for me than it was in the book. But that should have been the theme.

[A]

Yes, because it at least, like, teaches a little bit. Then there's something. A takeaway.

[B]

Yeah, there's always gotta be a lesson in the Groundhog's Day movies. I'm, of course, talking about the trope of Groundhog's Day. Yes. The movie Groundhog's Day. But then there's a trope of other movies that take the same premise of, you know, waking up and it's the same day, and they keep making more of them. And she basically says at the end of the book, her last line is, my script isn't done. Not yet. I'm still writing it, dad. And I have no plans to slow down anytime soon. So put the needle back on the record, turn up the volume, and cue the encore. The best is yet to come. All right, let's do the book till. Okay, first question. Was the author vulnerable in the sharing of her truth?

[A]

I think for her, she was. And what she was legally allowed to share, she was. I definitely wanted more, but I don't know if she's there yet.

[B]

I'm a no, because I kept being like, there's so much here. Why am I not feeling an emotional connection? I was like, is it because there's too many, like, descriptive words? Is it the travel blog vibe? And I think I ended up feeling like. Like either. Christy's personality truly is, like, always look on the bright side. And that's just her. This is her or she's not ready to go there yet.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Which is also fair. Okay, second question. Was it entertaining to read?

[A]

Yes, it was wild.

[B]

Yeah. Like I said, it was delightful. It was like. It was like listening to a good song that I don't want to play again. Like, I'm not gonna add it to my faves.

[A]

Right.

[B]

But I had a romp and, like.

[A]

Learning about how quickly. And how quickly she got so successful. Like, you don't get those fun stories anymore. And it was really fun. It was very fun to read.

[B]

Yeah. If you want to fantasize about being a supermodel in the 90s and just how it was all Saint Barts and Cecil, like, this is a great book for that 1000%. Okay, final question. Did reading this book elevate your life in any way?

[A]

I think that if I read this 10 years ago, it would have, but. Well, maybe not, because I feel like the pattern recognition that is throughout. I think I may have picked up on when I was younger to start recognizing maybe some patterns in my own life, but I unfortunately have had to face those. And so maybe I did that for her, but, you know, maybe if I'd read it when I was a little bit younger. Still not there yet. So not to. Like, other people may find that nice, like, reflectiveness for themselves.

[B]

Like. Like, if you're at the right place in life. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. I like that. It's a no for me. I tried to find it. I tried, I searched. And I'm gonna. I think I'm gonna read two little things from the very end. At the end of the acknowledgments, she said, and now that the book is finished, let's all celebrate with a bottle of white, a bottle of red, or perhaps a bottle of bellissima instead. Cheers. Sante. And here's to love. Xo Christy. And keep in mind, I was listening, right? I was like, the fuck? That's not even a theme. I guess you drink champagne a lot. What are we. But, like, shouldn't you be ending on champagne? I was just like, what is this? What is this? And then when I went and looked at the hard copy book in my hand and I got to the about the author. I'm just gonna read all of the about the author. Christie Brinkley is a model, actress, entrepreneur, illustrator, photographer, humanitarian, best selling author, smile train ambassador, activist in children's environmental, health and wellness, creator and owner of Bellissima Wines and the clothing line Tower Hill, proud mom of three amazing kids. In her five decades in the modeling Industry. She has been photographed on six continents, in more than 30 countries, and has appeared on more than 500 magazine covers worldwide. She also had the longest modeling contract of all time with a makeup company, which was Maybelline, which fired her when they said she was too old. And then her final line is, she lives in the Hampton. Hamptons. She's still in the Hamptons, but she ended the book on a product placement. Christina has just come in to let me know that this is actually a Billy Joel lyric, but Christina. I know. I know you guys can't hear Christina, but Christina is Bellissima in the. In the lyric. Okay? But Bellissima is her wine company that she is plugging at the end of this. So she's using her ex husband's music lyric to walk into a product placement for her. Her new wine company. Thank you, by the way. Thank you, Christina. I. Yeah, I guess I don't know Billy Joel's music. Listen, I love a good, you know, New York state of mind, but I don't get it. I. How are you using your ex husband's music lyric to end your book to promote your wine? So that led me to look up pictures of her clothing line, Tower Hill, which is sold on Home Shopping Network. It'll hurt. You know, it'll hurt you if you see what? If you see the clothes she's making. I said you don't. You don't like people if you want them to wear. You don't. You're mad that they're gonna wear. Like, why would you suggest to a woman that she should wear some of these clothes? I know you'd never wear them. Christy.

[A]

Christy.

[B]

So that's kind of where I thought, what is this? I don't like books that end on product placement. It makes the whole memoir feel.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Like a commercial.

[A]

And if it's gonna be commercial, push it more. Yeah, tell me.

[B]

Oh, my God.

[A]

Because, I mean, I guess put it.

[B]

In your beginning poem to your parents, rhyme me some bellissimo. Or you know what? Make it a theme. Like Jean Valjean always said, bellissimo. And that is how I knew I was gonna get over my heartbreak. And every time I went through a heartbreak and I made a mistake, I said to myself, bellissimo. And then you end and you're like, and you know what? I don't need no man. I got bellissimo with me. Bellissimo wines, bitch. Pick yourself up with some bubbly. Like, yes, now we've got a through line.

[A]

I do wish that she kind of ended more of the like, I'm the love, I'm my own love, I've been looking for kind of thing.

[B]

I gotta tell you, I don't think she believes she feels that. And I actually don't want that lesson. I don't want. I'm so done with like, actually it was self love and it's like, yeah, we know. Then why is it so hard to get there? I don't think she's there, though. I don't think she believes it.

[A]

No, no, no, no, no.

[B]

I think she's gonna get married again. And I will be front fucking row. If I can dig a hole and get there. If I can dig a hole to the Hamptons and pop up in that wedding, I would love to. To be there for whoever number five is.

[A]

I hope she doesn't want her.

[B]

She will. She will. Nicole, tell everyone where they can find you. Follow you. What is something you want people to pay attention to and put their eyes on?

[A]

I am on Instagram. I don't post a ton once I can finally post things that I'm working on. I will post it there though, at Nicole Boyd on Instagram. And just keep yourself educated in this time. Stay on your toes how you can help your community and, you know, megaphone, the information that your neighbors may need in a pinch.

[B]

That was really beautiful. Thank you so much for coming on and yelling about Christy from Booth for one hour and 50 minutes. Oh, Christy.

[A]

And we had to.

[B]

It was so dense. A huge thank you to our podcast producer, Christina Lopez, our executive producer Jordan Moncada, our sound engineer, Marcus Hamm, and our amazing associate producer, Jaron Padre. I also want to let you know that if you love audiobooks but you want to support independent bookstores, go to Libro fm where it is easy to download audiobooks and support local bookshops. And right now you get two Libro FM audiobook books for the price of one with your first month of membership using code Trash. That's right, Trash. T R A S H. Two audiobooks for the price of one at Libro fm. And if you have questions, go to the Patreon Chat Lounge and I will see you there.