Billy Joel, 59, has been married to 27 year-old Katie Lee Joel for four and a half years. They met at a bar when Katie was out with friends in New York and she claims that she didn’t even know who he was at first. In their Oprah appearance last year, Katie did most of the talking and explained that their relationship works because she’s mature for her age and Billy “has this job that’s allowed him to be really immature for a long time – rock star.” You could tell that Katie likes to take the reins in the relationship and Joel didn’t seem to mind. They were on the show promoting Katie’s new cook book at the time, The Comfort Table.

It looks like Katie might be up to more than just whipping up stuff in the kitchen and throwing dinner parties while Joel is away on tour. She’s rumored to be having an affair with a 36 year-old Israeli designer. Billy initially thought that Katie’s friend was gay, but he’s straight and the Enquirer has pictures of Katie dancing with the guy at a club where he looks like he’s interested in more than just friendship:

Billy Joel’s young wife has started a cozy relationship with a hunky male fashion designer, the Enquirer has learned exclusively.

The superstar musician… is being advised by close pals to dump gorgeous Katie Lee, 27, when his current concert tour ends in November, say sources.

For nearly a year, Katie Lee has been spotted out with Yigal Azrouel, a a handsome 36 year-old Israeli-born designer.

“Billy is furious,” a close source told The Enquirer. “His wife’s relationship with this guy is causing a split in his marriage.

“Initially, Billy thought it was great that she met a new friend, someone to occupy her time while he trudges through a long tour schedule. But now he’s become very concerned.”…

“She’s practically going around acting like Yigal’s girlfriend. It’s almost like she’s forgotten that she’s married to Billy Joel!” another source told The Enquirer.

“Billy initially thought Yigal – being a male fashion designer – was gay. But when someone told him the guy was heterosexual and had women hanging all over him, Billy began to worry.”

[From The National Enquirer, print edition, April 20, 2009]

We heard rumors two years ago that Billy and Katie were on the outs. Joel was heavily boozing at the time and Katie was said to be fed up with it. They worked through that rough patch, though. On Oprah Katie was proudly showed off how she’d decorated their Manhattan townhouse with the help of designer Nate Berkus and Joel was more than happy with his young wife’s skill in the kitchen. Somehow they’ve made it last this long. If Katie is really cheating with this guy though we may be hearing about a divorce soon. As Joel would sing, “everyone is so untrue.”

Katie Lee Joel and Billy Joel are shown outside Howard Stern’s wedding on 10/3/08. Katie is also shown at the Vanity Fair Oscar party on 2/22/09. Credit: WENN.com

59 year-old rocker Billy Joel has a pretty candid interview in the upcoming issue of Details, and I found myself laughing out loud at a few of his comments. He talks about a suicide attempt at 21, about his young bride, and about the many car accidents he’s had, all of which he claims had nothing to do with his drinking. He also likens the Betty Ford clinic to a “concentration camp” and says that he just needed to dry out.

On his suicide attempt at 21 with furniture polish

Q: Is it true that after the failure of [your heavy metal band] Attila you tried to kill yourself by drinking a bottle of furniture polish?
A: That’s true. Yeah, I was suicidal. I was 21. It’s a tough age. Things hit you really hard. A relationship with a girl had ended and I was devastated, and then it didn’t work out with the recording we did, and I just figured the world didn’t need another failed musician. You take yourself so seriously—you’ve got your head so far up your ass you can’t see straight.

Q: But why did you use furniture polish?
A: I was just lookin’ for poison. I looked in my mother’s closet and there was bleach, and it had the skull and crossbones, and then there was furniture polish. And at the time I thought, Well, the furniture polish will probably taste better than the bleach, so I’ll drink the furniture polish. And all I ended up doing was farting furniture polish for a couple of days and polishing my mother’s chairs.

[From Men.Style.com]

On his trips to rehab and car accidents

Q: What spurred your checking into the Betty Ford Center in 2005?
A: Well, I had tried to go to a rehab before that, but I was only able to be there for a few days—the press found out about it and they were swarming the place and I had to leave. That was in Connecticut, a place called Silver Hill. It was disrupting the program for everybody else, so I said, “Look, I’m going to split, because you guys can’t get anything done here.” You know, I grew up in a neighborhood where everybody ended up at the corner bar at the end of the day. I guess eventually, if that’s part of your lifestyle, it’s going to become problematic. And I realized I was just drinking too much. I said, “You know, I don’t want to do this.” And I went to Betty Ford—I hated it. I hated it. It was like a concentration camp—well, I can’t say that, I’ve never been in a concentration camp. But for me it was. There’s a lot of dogma that goes with it, and there’s the whole AA thing, and for a lot of people that works. I didn’t necessarily follow that. But it was good. I dried out. And it was probably one of the best things I ever did, because I realized I was just drinking too much, and I really don’t need to do that. Once in a blue moon, I’ll have a glass of wine. But I’m very afraid of going beyond that. I don’t want to be out of control. I mean, I had some car accidents. Everybody thinks that I was drunk driving. I was not drunk driving. There was only really one bad accident, and that was on an icy road. The other two accidents were really blown out of proportion by the tabloids. But that had nothing to do with the booze. It was just a weird time of life for me. I was preoccupied.

On why the Olive Garden sucks

Q: As the man who wrote “Scenes From an Italian Restaurant”, do you have any recommendations?
A: Oh, there’s a great place down on Houston Street called Ballato’s. It’s just a humble place on Houston Street, and the food is made with love. You can taste the love in the food.

Q: What are some warning signs that an Italian restaurant is no good?
A: Well, a bad sign is glop. Too much cheese. Too much garlic. Like the Olive Garden. I’m sorry. I know they’re trying to bring an Italian cuisine to America, but it sucks.

On seeing a ghost

I used to live in East Hampton, and it was an old house that had been renovated, and I was going to bed one night, and I walked into my bedroom and I saw what looked like a woman brushing her hair in front of a mirror. She was very old-fashioned-looking—it looked like a 19th-century woman in a dressing gown. It was quite realistic. It was quite three-dimensional. I wasn’t dreaming. I saw this. It lasted for about a minute, and I said, “Okay, I’m one of those people,” you know? I realized I don’t know everything.

Joel’s 26 year-old wife Katie is a cook so he presumably knows what he’s talking about when he says the Olive Garden sucks. Joel also said that Katie wants to establish herself first before they decide to have children, and that “I’m actually very proud of her for doing that. She doesn’t just sit around and spend my money.” He wouldn’t specify if they were planning on children and said “That’s something between me and her, though.”

Have any of you seen a ghost(s)? I thought I saw one once, but I was just 15 and was impressionable and tired at the time. It also was more of a whispy thing and wasn’t all detailed like the one Joel claims to have seen. You would assume that some kind of drugs or alcohol were involved, but I’ve known plenty of smart people who swear they’ve seen ghosts. To continue Joel’s theme of passing gas and near-death experiences, I think apparitions are just mind farts. Sometimes the brain gets too many chemicals sloshing around in there and plays tricks on us. Joel’s is not necessarily in tip top shape after all he’s gone through. He’s got a great sense of humor about it though.

Billy Joel and Katie Lee Joel are shown in the header on 8/14/07. Credit: Antonio Salvador / WENN. He is shown performing on 8/4/07. Credit: Julie Ramos/WENN. Photo below is from 6/14/07. Credit: PNP/WENN

Billy Joel, 58, and his young wife Katie, 27, were on Oprah yesterday to promote Katie’s new cookbook, The Comfort Table. Katie was just 23 when they were married in 2004. When they were on stage together Katie definitely dominated the conversation and Billy only spoke occasionally like he was used to it.

On how they met
Katie said she didn’t really know much about Billy Joel before she met him and thought he just had two hit songs, “Uptown Girl” and “Piano Man.” She said she was at the bar at the Pennisula Hotel with a friend and she almost bumped into him and that’s how they met. He then took her out to dinner and to his “Moving Up Out” show on Broadway. Billy performed the last two songs on stage and Katie didn’t realize that he was doing it just to impress her and that he didn’t normally perform in that show.

Here are Billy and Katie’s comments on their unconventional relationship.

Oprah: “Did you ever think you would marry an older man?”
Katie: “I never really thought about it, but it works for us. He has this job that’s allowed him to be really immature for a long time – rock star, and I happen to be more mature for my age so we meet somewhere in the middle.”

“So it never comes up?”
Katie: “Well, sometimes I don’t know a song or I don’t know a movie that he does.”

“You should get Billy Joel’s greatest hits!”

“Billy was it an issue for you?”
Billy: “No, no it worked. I’ve said this before, I would have married her if she was 30 years older. When it works, when it clicks, you don’t fight it, you go with it.”

“So what’s your relationship like with their daughter?”
Katie: “Alexa [22] is really a special person to me. She was my maid of honor in my wedding actually, and I’m always impressed by her. She has so much talent and grace. She’s just really special.”

“So you guys bonded over food? You cook for him?”
Yes, he loves it when I’m in the kitchen. I always say he’s my guinea pig when I’m writing recipes and he tries everything and is really honest.

[Transcribed from The Oprah Winfrey show, March 24, 2008]

While Katie answered the question about Billy’s daughter gracefully you can tell she doesn’t get along with her. She talked more in general terms and didn’t say they hung out and went shopping together or anything.

Katie seems like she wears the pants in the relationship despite the large age difference. She comes off as annoying and a type A personality, but mildly endearing at the same time. She reminds me of Reese Witherspoon’s overachieving character in Election, like she’s determined and is trying too hard to please.

Oprah’s designer Nate Burke decorated Katie and Joel’s New York home, and Katie gave a tour. She said she saw Burke on the Oprah show and contacted him to do their place. When she said she was surprised he did “average peoples” homes the audience laughed.

Billy Joel got a chance to talk to Oprah before his chatty wife came on. He briefly mentioned his battle with alcoholism but glossed over it. He’s sober now and said his life is good. He said that rehab is like jail and that it’s like being in the drunk tank.

When Oprah brought up his record of car accidents he blew it off and said they were due to bad driving, not being drunk.

This woman’s cookbook is going to take off like Jessica Seinfeld’s did after her Oprah appearance and that hardly seems fair. In this case it seems like she at least worked hard on it and actually was interested in cooking before hooking up with Joel. Katie has a food column in Hamptons magazine and has worked as a commentator on The Food Network. She said her fondest memories from childhood are around the dining room table in West Virginia where she grew up.

Billy Joel and Katie Joel on Oprah:

Billy Joel talks about his relationship with Kristie Brinkley, his daughter, and his problems with alcohol and cars:

And here are links to other segments from the show.
Katie Joel makes meatloaf
Billy Joel performs “Only The Good Die Young”

Katie and Billy Joel are shown at Madonna’s Raising Kabbalah benefit on 2/7/08, thanks to Splash News.

Sean Combs/Puff Daddy/Puffy/P. Diddy’s White Party is hardcore. It’s considered one of the absolute most important “seen and be seen” Hamptons parties thrown on Labor Day weekend. As the always humble Puffy noted, “’ “It’s a party that has legendary status. It’s hard to throw a party that lives up to its legend.’” Thanks for keeping yourself in check and not getting too carried away with your own awesomeness. The basic (and unbreakable) rule of the white party is that everyone must be dressed in head-to-toe white. This is not a guideline, this is a hardcore rule, and Puffy has spotters at the front door making sure no one is trying to sneak in wearing eggshell or cream. Call them cream puffies. It’s absolutely ridiculous, but I guess you could argue that there is so little formality left in the world that a little, mixed with a healthy dose of pretension, won’t kill anyone.

“White was the dress code at a star-saturated party thrown by Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs at his Long Island home, and the dress code was strictly enforced. The hip-hop mogul’s annual White Party, which he has held in St. Tropez in recent years, featured a white carpet to go along with the white dress code.

“‘This party is up there with the top three that I’ve thrown,’ Combs said. ‘It’s a party that has legendary status. It’s hard to throw a party that lives up to its legend.’ Mariah Carey, Busta Rhymes, Donna Karan, Ashley Olsen, Star Jones and Tommy Lee were among the guests. But those who failed to abide by the dress code found themselves told to change, including the wife of Billy Joel, Katie Lee. She had gone to the party dressed in a shade of cream, but that did not win over Combs’ fashion police. Turned away, she opted to go home.

“Combs wore white sneakers with silver detailing, a white shirt and pants and a gold medallion.”

[From Newsday]

Oooh oooh, so it’s okay for Puffy to wear silver and gold, but poor Billy Joel’s wife can’t wear cream? Hypocrite. At least she went home without attending the party – that means the odds of Billy Joel driving her home drunk went down by 30 percent. Puffy also made an unnamed guest change out of his cream pants and into a pair of Puffy’s white pants – in the street!

“P Diddy reportedly forced a male guest strip at one of his high prestige parties last week…because he apparently didn’t follow dress code, a very strict rule in the Diddy household. The hip hop mogal [sic] was hosting one of his annual parties, this time the ‘White Party’, and the guest was wearing ‘cream’ trousers. Ooooo! He had to replace them, obviously, with one of P Diddy’s white trousers from his wardrobe. According to British newspaper The Sun, the rapper’s security guards refused the man entry to the mansion until he replaced his garments with some Diddy approved white ones.”

[From Showbiz Spy]

So much for being a gracious host. The guy is a bit of a control freak, to say the least. I remember reading some article a million years ago about Puffy’s first White Party, and the invitations actually stated that ladies were to be waxed, including their bikini areas. Let’s hope he didn’t have guards checking that, too.

Picture note by Celebitchy Diddy is shown with his children children Big Christian, Little Quincy, and Justin Combs at the White Party on 9/2, thanks to WENN.