OCTOBER 2, 2004 – Billy Joel married 23-year-old Milton, West Virginia-born chef Katie Lee at his Oyster Bay, New York mansion on Long Island. It was the third marriage for Joel. At the time of the wedding, Joel was 55. Joel’s daughter, Alexa Ray, then 18, served as maid-of-honor.
Joel’s second wife, Christie Brinkley, attended the union and gave the couple her blessing. Lee studied journalism and food science at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, where she graduated in 2003. While there she was a member of Kappa Alpha Theta. She spent a semester abroad in Florence, Italy at The British Institute. She met Joel at the rooftop bar at The Peninsula hotel while visiting New York City for a weekend, and the two were hitched after dating for a year. Lee worked as a restaurant correspondent for the PBS show “George Hirsch: Living it Up!” and in 2006 hosted Bravo’s “Top Chef.”
She did not return for a second season, instead going on tour with her husband. She then began writing a weekly column in Hamptons magazine, began writing cookbooks, and became a field correspondent for the entertainment television show “Extra.” On June 17, 2009, the Joels confirmed that they had split after five years of marriage. Lee is a now a co-host of Food Network’s talk show “The Kitchen” and the Cooking Channel’s “Beach Bites with Katie Lee.”
