Christie Brinkley with Cindy Crawford at Live Talks Los Angeles

Christie Brinkley in conversation with Cindy Crawford at Live Talks Los Angeles discussing her memoir, "Uptown Girl." This event was taped on May 5, 2025

In 1974, a twenty-year-old Christie Brinkley was “discovered” outside a Paris phone booth, which set off a meteoric modeling career that would land her on the covers of hundreds of magazines and cement her legacy as an All-American icon. Although she’s lived more than fifty years in the public eye, the full story of her roller-coaster life has never been told.

Christie Brinkley is a model, actress, entrepreneur, illustrator, photographer, humanitarian, bestselling author, Smile Train ambassador, activist in children’s environmental health and wellness, creator and owner of Bellissima wines and prosecco and the clothing line TWRHLL, and mother of three. In her five decades in the modeling industry, she has been photographed on six continents, in more than thirty countries and has appeared on more than five hundred magazine covers worldwide.

Since a local photographer discovered Cindy Crawford as a teenager in her native Illinois, she rose to become one of the original supermodels. Her timeless beauty has earned her long-term, global contracts with some of the world’s major brands. As an entrepreneur, she has created television shows, exercise videos, beauty products and a collection of home products that grosses $350 million a year. With her 2015 memoir, for which she graced our stage at Live Talks LA, Cindy also became a NYT bestselling author.

In Uptown Girl, Christie Brinkley shares what life has been like, both in front of and behind the cameras, considering the girl she was alongside the woman she has become. Her stories are as heartening as they are eye-opening, as she recounts her most formative chapters, including the betrayal by her biological father as a child, her lifelong passion for art, her whirlwind career, her four tumultuous marriages—including her heartbreaking divorce from Billy Joel—and the harrowing experiences that almost cut her life short.

Through it all, Christie’s unwavering belief in the magic and mystery of life has been her guiding light, even during her darkest times. It is with this grace and gratitude that she tenderly chronicles the unexpected, unexplainable ways her life has unfolded, embracing every adventure and twist of fate along the way: traveling the world as a supermodel at the height of the model wars, living life on the road with her rock-star husband and their baby, starring in blockbuster movies and hit sitcoms, riding horses with cowboys, training with world-champion boxers, and even stepping into the spotlight on Broadway.

A bighearted, beautifully crafted memoir of resilience and self-discovery, featuring more than 100 photographs and never-before-seen pieces of Christie’s original artwork, Uptown Girl is the brave account of a life lived at full throttle and on full display.