Who

Joel might be one of the most accomplished singer-songwriters of his generation, but in recent years he's been better known for his booze-fueled misadventures, much-younger wives, and regular appearances in the tabloids.

Backstory

Joel was raised by his mom in Hicksville, Long Island and started playing the piano and singing as a young kid. A goodie-goodie, though, he was not: He spent several years boxing as a teenager (and has a broken nose to show for it), joined a gang (or so he says), and often ditched school to pursue his musical ambitions, which he says were inspired by the Beatles performance on The Ed Sullivan Show. Joel played in a series of local cover bands in the late 60s—he played piano on the Shangri-Las hit "Leader of the Pack" when he was 16—before joining a group called the Hassles and releasing two barely-noticed albums. He later started a band called Attila with Hassles drummer Jonathan Small, but the new group's one release didn't fare much better, prompting Joel to launch a solo career. His debut album, Cold Spring Harbor, came out in 1971. It didn't make much of a splash, and he ended up spending six months working the piano bar circuit to make money, an experience that would later inspire his hit single "Piano Man." His big breakthrough arrived with the 1977 album The Stranger, which featured a string of hit singles including "Just the Way You Are," "Movin' Out," "She's Always a Woman," and "Only the Good Die Young"; "Just the Way You Are," which Joel wrote for his first wife and then-manager, Elizabeth Weber, won two Grammys and transformed him into one of the most popular singer songwriters of the era.

Joel continued to pump out hits throughout the 1980s and early '90s like "We Didn't Start the Fire" and "River of Dreams." But since his heyday nearly a decade ago, he's been largely absent from the pop scene. In recent years he's been composing classical music (like 2001's Fantasies & Delusions) and in 2003 he collaborated with Twyla Tharp on the Broadway hit Movin' Out, which earned him a Tony award. He can set it alongside the six Grammies he's won over his three-decade career.

Vice

Joel has long struggled with alcohol abuse. After a fender-bender in early 2002, he spent 10 days in rehab at Silver Hill Hospital in Connecticut, vowing he'd get clean as a Father's Day gift to his daughter. He's not a very good gift-giver: A few months later, while driving his brand new Mercedes in Sag Harbor, Joel swerved and crashed into a tree, later telling cops that he'd had only "a glass of champagne." He ran into more trouble in 2004 when he drove straight into a Long Island home while allegedly sober. He was treatment-bound once again in 2005 when he headed off to Betty Ford for a 30-day stint.

Legal file

Joel seems to be fond of paying large legal bills. Over the years he's faced off in court against a long list of individuals, including his first wife, Elizabeth Weber, and his former brother-in-law, whom Joel had accused of fraud and misappropriation of funds. In 1992, he filed a $90 million lawsuit, this time against former lawyer Allen Grubman, charging fraud, malpractice, and breach of contract. (The case was letter settled for an undisclosed sum.) In 1995, he sued his former tour manager.

Personal

Joel divorced his first wife, Elizabeth Weber, in 1982, and traded way up when he married supermodel Christie Brinkley two years later. The Piano Man and the Uptown Girl were married for nine years and had one daughter, Alexa Ray, before splitting. In 2004, at age 55, Joel got married for a third time, to 23-year-old "restaurant critic" Katie Lee. However, that relationship failed to last, and the couple eventually split in 2009.

Family ties

Daughter Alexa Ray (she's named after Ray Charles) is following her dad's footsteps—or trying to, at least. She released her first album in 2006.

Habitat

Joel splits his time between a Sagaponack mansion, which he purchased in 2007 for $16.75 million, a Manhattan apartment, and a home in Miami Beach that cost him $13.5 million in 2006. He is fond of flipping property: Joel's previous Hamptons home, an Oyster Bay mansion he purchased for $22.5 million in 2002, was sold for $37.5 million in 2006. (He gave it up after pesky wildlife protection regulations forbade him from building a dock for his three boats—the $2.5-million commuter yacht Vendetta, his fishing boat Alexa, and a pontoon landing craft.) Before that, he sold a Hamptons oceanfront home for $32 million to Jerry Seinfeld in 2000.