Christie Brinkley offers a surprising take on how long marriage should last
After four failed marriages, Christie Brinkley isn’t approaching love with expectations of forever.
On a recent episode of the "Are You a Charlotte?" podcast, in which actress/host Kristin Davis and Brinkley pondered whether it’s even possible to keep the connection going in marriage today, the supermodel offered a surprising take on romance.
"You could get married (and be like), 'We’ll see if we want to renew it in five years,' you know?" Brinkley suggested. "Every five years, you go: 'Do you want to renew?' That way, if you’re getting bored or whatever, you can get out of it without all of the lawyers, all of that stuff."
Brinkley, 71, has been divorced from Peter Cook (father of her daughter Sailor) since 2008. She ended their 12-year marriage after Cook admitted to cheating on her with an 18-year-old.
She was previously married to Richard Taubman (father of her son Jack, later adopted by Cook), Billy Joel (father of her daughter Alexa Ray) and Jean-François Allaux.
Speaking more broadly about love and fidelity earlier in the podcast, Brinkley said, "I have my mom and dad as proof that it is possible. They were so great together, their love could light up a room. They never had like a sip of wine, if they were separated from each other, without at least reaching their fingers across to each other and touching them if they couldn’t kiss each other. So it is possible.
"But I don’t know, it just seems in this world today that there’s so much temptation or not enough – what’s the word I’m looking for? - a guy with a strong character, fiber. Honor, that’s what it is. Honorable men are becoming a rarity."
Brinkley detailed Cook’s cheating in her memoir “Uptown Girl,” writing that she learned of his affair while giving a high school commencement address in 2006. After her speech, she wrote, a man approached her and told her Cook was involved with his teenage daughter.
She acknowledged breaking down as she retold the story for her audiobook. As she recorded it, "there were parts where I thought, 'Please, don't cry,'" Brinkley told Social Life magazine. "I tried to keep (my voice) level, but (the publisher) let me be. Let my voice crack. Let it show."
She speaks more warmly about her marriage to Joel (1985 to 1994), which fell apart as he struggled with alcoholism. "There was something sweet and old-fashioned about him," she says in the HBO Max documentary "Billy Joel: And So It Goes."
Despite her marital woes, Brinkley remains optimistic about love, telling Fox News in April that "love is the strongest thing in the whole world."
"I just feel like my life is so full of love," Brinkley said. "If there's a romantic love that comes along as well, it would be wonderful. But I also feel very content and happy with the life that I have right now, and I consider my life to be very full of love."
Contributing: Edward Segarra and Melissa Ruggieri