Joel’s daughter taken to hospital
Friend calls 911 after singer takes 8 pills
NEW YORK – Alexa Ray Joel, the daughter of pop star Billy Joel and supermodel Christie Brinkley, was hospitalized after taking eight pills at her Manhattan apartment, a law enforcement official said Saturday.
A friend frantically called 911 shortly after noon Saturday from the singer’s Greenwich Village apartment saying Joel, 23, had taken several pills, the official told the Associated Press.
Joel took eight pills, though officials didn’t know what kind she had ingested, an official said; it wasn’t clear whether she had accidentally overdosed or attempted suicide, the official said.
The official wasn’t authorized to disclose the matter publicly and spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity.
Joel is hospitalized in stable condition and receiving treatment, Joel publicist Claire Mercuri said Saturday. She wouldn’t elaborate.
“We are currently assessing her needs,” she said.
Her father said she will recover.
“She is going to be fine,” Billy Joel told New York’s Newsday newspaper on Saturday night.
Fire Department records indicate that paramedics responded to the West Village building where Joel lives at 12:21 p.m. Saturday and transported one woman to St. Vincent’s Hospital. The fire department declined to identify the patient.
Joel, who was raised in Sag Harbor, a village on Long Island, attended New York University for a short time before dropping out to focus on her music career, according to her MySpace page.