Alexa Ray Joel: Just The Way You Are?
If the newest photos are any indication, Alexa Ray Joel does not subscribe to the inner beauty theory extolled in “Just The Way You Are,” one of her father’s biggest hits. Joel debuted an extremely sexy new look while performing at the Cafe Carlyle last night, and she is a completely new woman.
Alexa, who is the daughter of musician Billy Joel and super model Christie Brinkley, has admitted to having a nose job, had always said that she would not have any other plastic surgeries.
“Would I do anything else to my body? No. It’s not 10 procedures like Heidi Montag. For me, that’s a little extreme, but to each her own.”
The pressure of being Brinkley’s daughter has to be extreme, especially when she resembled her equally famous but nowhere near as attractive father. Alexa was always pretty; however her father blessed her with not only his musical talent, but with his nose, as well.
“(My nose) always bothered me a little bit. I was self-conscious of pictures taken from the side. To some people that’s vain, but at the end of the day, we all want to feel pretty.”
Joel has had bouts with depression, and attempted suicide in 2009. A bad break up with band mate Jimmy Riot, along with Brinkley’s very public divorce from Peter Cook and her father’s marriage to Katie Lee, who was closer to Alexa’s age than her father’s were all cited as factors in Joel’s emotional break down, but Joel has never blamed either of her parents for her troubles. Rumors that her mother had been critical of her weight hit the tabloids quickly, but Joel has publicly denied those allegations, telling People magazine:
“Do not dare attack my mother. Nobody is more supportive of my physical appearance than her.”
Brinkley famously did not approve of Alexa’s relationship with Riot, most notably because he was 15 years older than her daughter. While her famous father has been very open about his difficulties with alcohol and depression, Joel hid her panic attacks from the public as best she could. She used homeopathic medications to try and combat the panic attacks that plagued her, but on December 5, 2009, after one more rejection from Jimmy Riot, she swallowed between 10 to 15 of the pills, and felt so ill that she called 911 and told them that she wanted to die.
With her mother and father’s support, Joel checked herself into a hospital for 12 days of treatment. When Joel was released, she began seeing a therapist, who helped her realize that she could exist without Riot, and make a fresh start. She has certainly made that fresh start; the Alexa Ray Joel of 2014 looks nothing like the beautiful young woman who has always been the apple of her father’s eye.
Do you think Alexa Ray Joel went too far?
