Five-time Grammy winner Billy Joel is a four-time husband.
The legendary singer-songwriter, who’s currently married to Alexis Roderick Joel, said “I do” to three other women before he wed his final match in 2015.
Of course, it’s no surprise that the man who penned beloved love ballads, like “Just the Way You Are,” “She’s Always a Woman” and “She’s Got a Way,” has fallen love a few times himself. But who are the wives who’ve walked down the aisle alongside him?
Read on to learn more about each of the 76-year-old partners, past and present, including his “Uptown Girl” and his longest lasting love.
Elizabeth Weber (1973–1982)
When Joel met his first wife-to-be, Elizabeth Weber, her last name was Small — and it’s not just a coincidence that she shared the same last name as his then-best friend and bandmate Jon Small.
In 1970, the married Smalls invited Joel to live with them and their son, out of both musical convenience and financial need. But the arrangement crumbled once an affair between Joel and Elizabeth Small began. Soon after it was discovered, Elizabeth Small went back to the name Weber, breaking off things with both her ex-husband and Joel.
For a while.
Even though Joel felt terrible in the wake of the affair, he couldn’t get Weber out of his head or heart.
“She was — different,” Joel recalled in Fred Schruers’ 2015 book, “Billy Joel: The Definitive Biography.” “She wasn’t like a lot of the other girls I knew at that time who had taken home ec and cooking classes. She was a very bright woman, and she wasn’t afraid to show how smart she was. I suppose that made her kind of exotic. Intelligent and not afraid to speak her mind, but could also be seductive. Almost like a European type — not a typical American girl.”
Joel and Weber eventually rekindled their relationship (just as Joel and Small eventually renewed their friendship). And in 1973, Weber became both Joel’s wife and his manager.
The hit maker told Schruers that Weber became his muse, inspiring much of his music around the time of his 1977 album “The Stranger.”
The couple parted ways in 1982.
Christie Brinkley (1985–1994)
Not long after his split from Weber, Joel met supermodel Christie Brinkley.
“We were friends first,” Joel explained in biographer Hank Bordowitz’s “Billy Joel: The Life and Times of an Angry Young Man.” “I was nuts about her, but it took her a while to reciprocate.”
In the same book, Brinkley said it was Joel’s “heart and soul” that finally drew her in and made her “want to marry him.”
But before they swapped vows, they celebrated their relationship in song with Joel’s 1983 hit, “Uptown Girl,” written in part about Brinkley and starring her in the accompanying music video.
The pair went on to wed in March 1985, and in December of that same year, they welcomed a child together, daughter Alexa Ray Joel.
Though Joel and Brinkley divorced in 1994, they remain close friends. She even consulted him before writing about some of their more difficult days together in her 2025 memoir, also titled “Uptown Girl.”
“He said, ‘Just say what you need to say,’” Brinkley shared in an interview with TODAY.
Katie Lee (2004–2009)
The “You May Be Right” singer met chef, food critic and cookbook author Katie Lee in 2002, and the pair quickly struck up a friendship. Lee, at the time, had to brush up on Joel’s work to really find out about her pal.
“I went out and bought the greatest hits album, and I was like, ‘Oh, I know “Still Rock and Roll,” I know “My Life” — I love these songs,’” she noted in “Billy Joel: The Definitive Biography.”
She added that, eventually, she learned every word to all his songs.
Lee was 23 when she and Joel said their “I dos” in an October 2004 ceremony outside at his Long Island mansion.
But by 2009, Joel and Lee broke up.
“After nearly five years of marriage, Billy and Katie have decided to separate,” a statement from Joel’s rep read. “The decision is the result of much thought and consideration. Billy and Katie remain caring friends, with admiration and respect for each other.”
Alexis Roderick (2015–present)
That same year, Joel met the woman who would become his most enduring partner in life, Alexis Roderick or, as he likes to call her, “A-Rod.”
The equestrian and former finance executive, who’s 33 years Joel’s junior, gave the music icon a ride home following their happenstance introduction at a restaurant. That led to a piano performance for one and maybe something more.
“I may have got a little fresh,” Joel later confessed to The New Yorker.
Months after that, they officially started dating and soon, they moved in together. But unlike some of his earlier relationships, there was no rush to the altar.
Joel and Roderick waited until July 15, 2015 to wed. The following month, they welcomed their first child together, daughter Della Rose Joel. They expanded their family two years later with the arrival of another daughter, Remy Anne Joel.
Joel and his fourth wife have remained by each other’s side since, through health and happiness and through hard times.
In May 2025, Joel revealed he’d been diagnosed with a rare but reversible brain disorder, a form of dementia called normal pressure hydrocephalus. In response to his announcement, Alexis Roderick Joel took to the singer’s Instagram account to share a message with his fans on behalf of her and their daughters.
“Thank you for the outpouring of love and support,” she wrote. “We are so grateful for the wonderful care and swift diagnosis we received. Bill is beloved by so many, and to us, he is a father and husband who is at the center of our world.”
