Christie Brinkley’s Bombshell About Ex Billy Joel’s Song ‘Uptown Girl’ (Exclusive)

Age-defying supermodel Christie Brinkley is dishing on her new memoir, aptly titled “Uptown Girl.”

“Extra’s” Mona Kosar Abdi spoke with Christie, 71, who is laying her extraordinary life bare and opening up about the good times and the hard times, including the helicopter crash that almost took her life and four failed marriages.

In the book, Brinkley dropped a bombshell about her ex Billy Joel’s famous song “Uptown Girl.”

She told Mona, “It’s a very interesting story. He’d actually started it for sort of a fantasy girl that didn’t really exist, and then he shelved it. And then one day, he just said, ‘Oh, my God, I’m looking at you and I’m realizing I had started this song a long time ago, but it’s you that I was writing about.’”

Christie recalled of her relationship with Joel, “I had a wonderful 11 years of Billy. You know, it was like, we were young and things were happening for us, and we’d look at each other like, ‘Can you believe this hotel room that they’re putting us up in?’ We were loving everything. We were so appreciative of the things that were going on in our lives, and we had a great time.”

Her memoir also details the dark times in their relationship, including his drinking.

Brinkley reflected, “I realized that there were times in my life where I was really trying so hard to make everything perfect, and it was upsetting that, no matter what I could do, it didn't seem like it was perfect enough."

Christie and Billy ended their marriage in 1994, but something special came out of their union… their daughter Alexa Ray, who convinced her mom to get candid with the memoir.

Brinkley said, “She actually encouraged me to go there, you know, and speak my truth because she said, ‘You know, you’re such a joyful person that I don’t think people understand that that comes from a depth that people aren’t really familiar with.’”

Christie emphasized that the memoir is “more than divorces,” adding, “It’s definitely not a revenge memoir in any way. I try to describe the joy, but sometimes when there is extreme joy like that and it falls apart. You kind of owe the reader an explanation of what you were feeling.”

Brinkley touched on her divorce from her ex, Peter Cook, who had an affair while they were married. Though he issued a public apology, he couldn’t salvage the relationship, which ended in 2006.

She shared, “I wasn't just going through that. What was really hard was both my parents were very, very sick and suffering."

Christie elaborated, "That's the blessing that you count when you're cheering yourself up and counting your blessings. It's like, you know, my family's healthy, you know, and when they're not, that was, that was really hard. And so to be going through that and just an excruciating divorce and all the various injustices in the family court, it was a very difficult time.”

Brinkley found a silver lining in it all, though, noting, “I think that all of that gives you — that expression, ‘What doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger.’ I really felt that, and I really discovered strengths that I had no idea that I had.”

Christie, who describes herself as a bit of a hopeless romantic, said she is open to finding love again after her past marriages.

She commented, “I still think maybe he’s out there, but if he isn’t, I’m very, very happy. And think when you’re really, really happy in your own life, that’s like probably, I mean, that's kind of good material. I think you don’t want to go into a relationship because you’re needy about something, you know? But, yeah, I love being in love. It’s fun... I just need to not be so hasty about it.”

Christie said of her outlook on life that she's "definitely an optimist." She added, "You have to be, because with optimism comes hope and comes action and comes, you know, a power to... I'm also an Aquarian, so I believe that we have the power to really, you know, make our life the way we want it."

She added, "And also, I grew up with my dad saying, 'Baby, you write your own script, and make it a good one.'"