More than four decades later Christie Brinkley is still an “Uptown Girl.”
The supermodel danced along while ex-husband Billy Joel performed “Uptown Girl” during a concert at his residency at New York City’s Madison Square Garden on April 26.
On April 27, Brinkley posted a video on Instagram of her dancing and singing along to Joel’s 1983 hit, while a TikTok video captured her enjoying the tune on the jumbotron.
“Uptown Girl” remains one of Joel’s biggest hits and featured Brinkley in the video, starring as a sophisticated, upper-class woman, while Joel plays a blue-collar mechanic. The duo was dating at the time, and the song peaked at No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100.
In a 2010 interview with Howard Stern, Joel confirmed the song was written about Brinkley, although he did say he wasn’t dating her when he began writing it and the idea for the track began after a chance encounter with Brinkley, Whitney Houston and Elle MacPherson, whom he was dating at the time.
Brinkley and Joel married in 1985 and share daughter Alexa Ray Joel. The couple divorced in 1994.
Brinkley’s Instagram clip also featured her with daughter Sailor Brinkley Cook, whom she shares with ex-husband Peter Cook, while Joel performed “Piano Man,” the Rolling Stones’ “Start Me Up,” “We Didn’t Start the Fire” and “The Longest Time.” Brinkley also shared footage of Alexa Ray singing “Say Goodbye to Hollywood” and serenading her father with Lulu’s “To Sir with Love.”
“Thanks for singing us a song @billyjoel and @alexarayjoel You’ve got us feeling alright! Just a few snippets from a magical evening at the garden!” Brinkley wrote, in part.
“I feel like it’s the kind of song that, I don’t know, one should sing to their hero. So it seems fitting: You are my hero, Dad,” Alexa Ray said to her father before noting he’s also a hero to New York and saying, “This is for you.”
She then serenaded him while he sat at the piano.
Brinkley posted two other clips of Alexa Ray singing “Say Goodbye to Hollywood” and was clearly moved by the moment, as Joel’s residency draws to a close this year.
“Before @billyjoel ‘s historic residency at @thegarden becomes a souvenir that slowly fades away.. one more night to remember! Alexa Ray and her Pop in perfect harmony on, Say Good Bye to Hollywood one last time in this great huge arena that Billy has turned into his own cozy living room,” she captioned the videos.
“And then as if that charming duo wasn’t enough, the tears welled up when she surprised her Dad with a serenade of To Sir With Love ( technical difficulties on my video so not pictured) but trust me it was sweetness personified. Billy was in his word,faklempt!”
