The Stunning Transformation Of Billy Joel's Daughter Alexa Ray

As the daughter of two American icons, Alexa Ray Joel has lived literally her entire life in the public eye. She has also somewhat lived in the shadow of her parents — five-time Grammy-winning singer and certified Piano Man Billy Joel, and longtime CoverGirl spokesmodel and three-time Sports Illustrated Swimsuit cover model Christie Brinkley. Billy Joel and Brinkley wed in 1985, welcoming their only daughter Alexa Ray at the end of that year. The couple divorced in 1994, and both parties went on to remarry and have more children. Alexa Ray continued to be a source of public fascination, even after her parents split.

Though she is proud of her lineage, Alexa Ray spent many years trying to carve out a name for herself separate from her mother and especially her father because she chose to follow him into the music world. "I love my parents, and I'm proud of where I come from, and I'm fortunate and privileged," she told ABC News in 2010. "But at the same time I don't want to ride on their coattails and I want to be defined by me." After she carved out an identity as a skillful singer-songwriter, Alexa Ray became much more open to embracing her familial fame. She has posed for photos alongside her mother, covered one of her father's songs in a national commercial, and joined the "We Didn't Start the Fire" singer onstage multiple times in recent years. Let's take a closer look at Alexa Ray Joel's stunning transformation.

Billy Joel famously told the world he was in a "New York State of Mind," and his daughter Alexa Ray Joel has similar feelings. Alexa Ray often speaks on being a New Yorker, which has shaped her outlook on life. "I think New Yorkers intellectualize things, and they analyze things in a certain way, and there's kind of a certain cynicism and ironic humor that comes with growing up here," she told Flatt magazine. "I think New Yorkers are more straightforward. It's this humor and honesty. I think that's shaped me."

Alexa Ray was born in Manhattan but raised mostly in Long Island — in the Hamptons, specifically. She still splits her time between Manhattan and Sag Harbor, where she and both of her parents have homes.

"I am a Long Island girl. It's in my blood," she once told Social Life Magazine. "To be close to the water is very cathartic and very creative for me. I'm able to come up with a lot of my songs while I'm on the Downeaster Alexa with my dad and I can just lose myself in the waves," she told The New York Post in 2018. For the uninitiated, Downeaster Alexa is the name of a fishing boat, immortalized in Billy Joel's 1989 song of the same name.

Growing up in New York, Alexa Ray Joel did not have to go far to find a good theater arts school. After graduating from high school, she chose to enroll at New York University's esteemed Tisch School of the Arts. Joel had already been taking classical piano lessons for years (since age 11) and had attended a prestigious workshop at the Berklee School of Music. Unfortunately, the singer did not love the program, and felt she did not quite fit the mold.

"I'm certainly not shy anymore, but I was certainly quite introverted at that time in my life, and here I was with all these theater people who are so outgoing," she admitted to American Songwriter. "They were very competitive about their parts, getting the lead part in the play ... I just didn't understand that, so I found myself retreating more and more to the practice rooms." These feelings of isolation and a lack of direction led Joel to take a leave of absence at the end of her freshman year to pursue music on her own terms.

After leaving New York University, Alexa Ray Joel put together a band and started playing small gigs, and her first shows were at an indie rock venue in nearby Hoboken, New Jersey. It was also during this time that the singer started working on her debut EP, "Sketches." The record contained six songs, including a cover of Neil Young's "Don't Let It Bring You Down" and five original tracks.

Joel was 20 when "Sketches" came out in 2006, but it was a long time coming. After all, she had always wanted to do music professionally, even if she was acutely aware of the weight of expectations due to her lineage. "It's very scary to want to do [music] with my father being who he is. If I really sit and think about the impact he's had, it's very intimidating. He is this iconic legend and he has woven so many stories of our culture and represented the Every Man through his music," she said in her interview with Flatt. "I carried [this] on my shoulders when I was younger and more self-conscious and still grappling with my own identity."

As she has aged, Joel has been able to carve out her own niche and find a sound that is different than that of her famous father. "It's a bit more soulful, more blues than my dad's," she once told People. "And his piano playing is better than mine, but that's okay. I don't want to be the Piano Girl."

Though she grew up privileged, Alexa Ray Joel's life has not been all roses. Like most people, Joel has experienced tough times, and there are plenty of tragic details in Joel's past. One of the largest is her 2009 overdose, for which the star needed to be hospitalized. Media caught wind of the story after paramedics took Joel to the hospital from her West Village apartment, and the coverage was not necessarily kind. Many outlets reported that Joel had attempted suicide by taking an unknown number of sleeping pills.

Though she has admitted to feeling distressed over a breakup, Joel has denied the suicide allegations. "That was a crazy media storm ... considering I didn't take anything that was going to end my life. I didn't cut my wrists open," she said to New York magazine the following year. "I was depressed breaking up with my on-and-off boyfriend of four years, living alone in this huge apartment in the West Village, and I took, like, eight homeopathic anti-inflammatories. I panicked and there was no one around, so I called 911. It was an awful experience."

In the years since her hospitalization, Joel has become something of a mental health advocate. She opened up about "heartbreak-related depression" online (via Extra) — and she hasn't stopped talking about depression yet. Joel served as the celebrity grand marshal at the Hope for Depression Research Foundation's annual race in the Hamptons in 2025.

For years, Alexa Ray Joel had to endure media (and social media) commentary on her looks. Though Joel is absolutely gorgeous, her features much more strongly resemble those of her father Billy Joel than her famous model mother Christie Brinkley. To live in the shadow of such an iconic beauty and face those comparisons could not have been easy for a young Alexa Ray. Later, she also faced comparisons to her model half-sister Sailor Brinkley Cook, who much more strongly resembles Brinkley. Unsurprisingly, the singer developed some deep insecurities. One of them was about her nose.

Alexa Ray got a nose job in 2010, which she openly shared with fans and the media. "I liked everything else about my physical appearance, but [my nose] always bothered me a bit. I had thought about it for about five years. I think I look more like me than my father's daughter now," she told People.

On numerous occasions, Alexa Ray has denied having additional procedures. For instance, in 2014, she posted, "The continuously-circulating rumors that I have had extensive 'face-work' and undergone breast-augmentation surgery is simply and entirely 100 percent false," alongside a photo on Instagram (via ABC News). "The only thing I have ever had done is my nose, which I have always been completely candid, honest and open about."

While she may not have inherited her mom's Malibu Barbie vibes, Alexa Ray Joel is most definitely striking in her own right. The executives at Prell shampoo thought so, at least, because they chose Joel to be a face of their iconic green shampoo. In February 2010, the musician signed a deal to appear in both television and print advertisements for the brand. She even got them to agree to use her music as the soundtrack for the television adverts, which is reportedly the main reason Joel signed on.

There was another motivating factor, however, and that had to do with Christie Brinkley. "I am so excited and honored to be named the new face of Prell — especially following in the footsteps of my mother, who was a Prell girl," Joel told Page Six. Brinkley appeared in a Prell shampoo advertisement in 1986, not long after Joel's December 1985 birth.

Joel's own ad came out in April 2010, but the reviews were not all positive. "Alexa Ray Joel very awkwardly pitches Prell," said Adweek, who noted a portrait of Brinkley that appeared to have been added in post-production. "But that little retrofit is nothing compared to the awkward way she vaults into song at the end. That's ... just weird," the review continued.

Alexa Ray Joel may not have a massive following, but her fans are devoted and in constant want of new music. After dropping her debut EP in 2006, Joel did not release another new song until 2008. It was called "For All My Days" and was followed up by another track the next year. She debuted that song, "Invisible," on an October episode of "The Wendy Williams Show" and offered it as a free download on her website.

Joel's next song, "Notice Me," dropped in 2011 and is still the singer-songwriter's most streamed song. It was supposed to be on her sophomore album; however, no such record ever materialized. It is all kind of a mystery considering Joel conducted her 2010 New York magazine interview while working on the album at Electric Lady Studios, and a July 2010 CBS News article even named the album ("All I Can Do") and release month (September 2010).

In any case, "Notice Me" is a catchy pop song that Joel wrote for a boy she met at a party. "Yes, he noticed me," Joel said to New York magazine. "It's been a very successful flirtation, but only a flirtation. I'm making work my priority, and I'm having the ride of my life right now." Joel released a couple of other songs in 2010 and 2011 but then went a decade without dropping new music.

There was only one song that Alexa Ray Joel released between 2011 and 2021 — a version of her father's smash hit "Just the Way You Are." The song is a track from Billy Joel's 1977 album "The Stranger" and is one of his most acclaimed tunes. He received his first two Grammy nominations — and wins — for "Just the Way You Are," in the categories of song of the year and record of the year. It was a natural fit for Alexa Ray, who put her own jazzy spin on the pop hit.

Though she was scared to record one of her father's songs, Alexa Ray had pretty solid motivation when Gap asked her to be in one of their 2013 "Back to Blue" advertising campaigns. "Yes, I want to be my own person and convey my own identity, but at the same time, I don't want to deny or not pay homage to my father's incredible body of work," Alexa Ray told Resident. "Before taking on the Gap commercial, I was reticent to touch his work, but once I started playing the chords for Just the Way You Are, it was therapeutic — I was able not to be so hard on myself; in fact, I was proud."

While she went a long time without releasing new music, Alexa Ray Joel never stepped away from performing. She has had a number of notable residencies at iconic New York City venues. "I've played a lot of great rooms in the city," she said in her interview with Resident. "I was doing a showcase, monthly, at The Living Room, which I loved. Another favorite was playing at the Oak Room at The Plaza; it's a New York institution."

Of all Joel's longer-term engagements, none is more notable than her time at the legendary Café Carlyle. It is there that she famously collapsed on stage in 2014, reportedly due to vasovagal syncope, a non-life-threatening condition involving fainting due to blood being blocked from flowing to the brain. Medical drama aside, the venue was clearly pleased with Joel's couple of weeks of performances — the show in which she fainted was sold out, after all. 

They offered her a much longer engagement for 2015, based upon the success of her cabaret-infused set of jazz covers and originals. "[The Carlyle] is a prestigious venue, and it's rare that you're asked back. Eartha Kitt played there, all these jazz greats," the star proudly told The Hollywood Reporter.

Though she was not always as confident as she has become, Alexa Ray Joel's public life led to her at one point becoming an advice columnist for the magazine J-14, aimed at teenage girls. "Girls would write me these very painfully insecure letters. I can't even remember specifics but [they detailed] these very minuscule things that they hated about themselves, that every day would make them so self-conscious. There was such a theme of self-hatred with these girls," Joel told Flatt magazine. "I realized just how much [young women] need help and need to know: 'It's okay, you don't have to be perfect. You are beautiful in your own way.'"

Joel clearly practices what she preached because she had enough confidence to appear alongside her supermodel mother Christie Brinkley and half-sister Sailor Brinkley Cook for the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue in 2017. "This was a lesson in learning to let go, take the plunge, and embrace myself from both the inside AND out- which is something I struggle with each and every day," Joel wrote on Instagram alongside a solo shot from the shoot. "My purpose is to now pass along this lesson of unconditional self-love and self-respect to every woman who's willing to listen."

After more than four years of dating, Alexa Ray Joel and restaurateur Ryan Gleason became engaged in 2018. They announced their engagement on New Year's Day with vacation photos on Instagram, highlighting Joel's gorgeous emerald-cut ring. "He said to me: 'Before I met you, my world was in black and white. You colored it in between the lines,'" Joel captioned one picture of the couple passionately kissing. "It was the most beautiful thing anybody's ever said to me. How could I possibly say no to that?!?!"

In 2019, Joel told People they had started to plan a wedding, but either Joel and Gleason are the slowest planners on earth, or priorities have shifted. The lovebirds are still together in 2025 but have yet to walk down the aisle.

But there is no question that Joel is still smitten with Gleason, for whom she penned a gorgeous love song in 2021 — her first release in a decade. And when she first played the tune for her beau in the kitchen, things got emotional. "So he started crying and then I started tearing up," Joel told Billboard. "We always slow-dance together in the kitchen; it's like a little tradition for us. 'Seven Years' is essentially a love letter to him and New York City, which is where we met."

Want another clue that Alexa Ray Joel and her fiancé Ryan Gleason are still going strong? Well, he is prominently featured in the music video for her song "Riverside Way," which came out in August 2024. The sexy song is a big change of pace for Joel, who has said she is in her "bad girl era" of making music. "I think people primarily see me as a good girl," she told Hello! "I rarely go out and don't drink that much. But a few years ago, I had this one summer where I had some inspiration; I went out and drank and was as wild as I can be. I was like: 'Woohoo, I'm living!' I had a lot of fun and I wanted to channel it into a song." The music video for the tune features Joel in multiple sexy outfits, including a fiery red corset with black lace on top, knee-high leather boots, and stockings.

"Riverside Way's" lyrics — written mostly from a bathtub in the wee morning hours — are as passionate as the video visuals, and that is not by accident. "I've always secretly enjoyed the feeling sometimes of just getting lost in something or someone, whether it's music, whether it's a physical expression. As beautiful and wonderful and powerful as love is, I wanted to explore and touch upon lust and fantasy with this song," Joel explained to Let's Talk Music With Kerri Lynn Slominski.