Christie Brinkley reveals how she stays healthy after surviving helicopter crash
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There is not a day that goes by that Christie Brinkley is not thankful to be alive after a ski adventure nearly killed her 31 years ago.
In 1994, the model, then 40, embarked on a heli-skiing tour in the San Juan Mountain range of Colorado with five other people, People magazine reported. During the flight, the helicopter took an unexpected sharp turn before making an abrupt plunge.
Brinkley wrote about the near-fatal accident in her new memoir, “Uptown Girl.”
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In her memoir “Uptown Girl,” Christie Brinkley wrote about her near-fatal helicopter crash in 1994. (Courtesy of Christie Brinkley)
“I think that this world is full of magic and miracles,” the now 71-year-old told Fox News Digital.
The star noted that during the flight, she was carrying dirt from Chimayo, New Mexico, which is said to hold healing properties. The area is known as one of the most visited holy sites in America and is described as “the most important Catholic pilgrimage center in the United States.”
Brinkley wrote that she visited Chimayo two weeks before the crash.
El Santuario de Chimayo in Chimayo, New Mexico. The Roman Catholic chapel, built in 1816, is a pilgrimage site for Catholics who believe in the healing power of the shine and its “holy dirt,” which pilgrims scoop from a hole in the adobe church’s floor. (Robert Alexander/Getty Images)
“I went to the Santuario de Chimayo, north of Sante Fe, and fell in love with the hope and miracles emanating from that tiny sanctuary tucked into the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, where the Pueblo Indians believe the golden soil inside can protect anyone who touches it,” she wrote in an excerpt obtained by Fox News Digital.
Christie Brinkley said on the day of the crash, she was carrying dirt from Chimayo, New Mexico. (Courtesy of Christie Brinkley)
Brinkley told Fox News Digital that before she got into the helicopter, she had “a bad feeling that day.” Worried, she sprinkled a little bit of dirt from Chimayo on the chopper.
“I said, ‘Oh magic dirt, do your stuff, take good care of all of us on this helicopter this day,’” she recalled. “I should have said, ‘Also, keep the helicopter in the air.’ But I do believe in miracles. Maybe it was a miracle of Chimayo. Maybe it was pure luck. During the crash, there were a lot of sections where it could have ended it. But we kept escaping each step. It was a pretty miraculous survival story.”
Many visitors to Chimayo, New Mexico, take a small amount of “holy dirt” in hopes of a miraculous cure for themselves or a loved one. (Robert Alexander/Archive Photos/Getty Images)
The helicopter struck the side of a mountain, People magazine reported. Brinkley wrote that the force was so powerful that the cabin was ripped into two.
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According to People magazine, Christie Brinkley was traveling with Ricky Taubman, a Los Angeles real estate developer; Sandra Will Carradine, the founder of Telluride’s Sheridan Arts Foundation; Carradine’s 11-year-old son, Cade; pilot Tom Sharp; and ski guide Mike Friedman. (Courtesy of Christie Brinkley)
“The crash was sudden and traumatic, coming out of nowhere,” she wrote. “We had already taken two runs and were circling to land for a third, on the saddle of a faraway peak, when the helicopter just fell from the sky, plunging into a freefall from three hundred feet overhead, with no autorotation.”
“Suddenly, it became crystal clear that the only thing that really mattered in life and at death was the same: love,” wrote Brinkley. “I focused on [my daughter] Alexa Ray, holding her pure in my thoughts and hoping to project all my heart and soul to her so she would feel it at the very moment of impact.”
At the time, Christie Brinkley had already made her mark as a Sports Illustrated Swimsuit model. (Stan Malinowski/Condé Nast via Getty Images)
“Through all the noise and the sickening smell of engine fuel and grease, I suddenly realized that I was still alive – I hadn’t died on impact – and I kept repeating Alex Ray’s name like a mantra, praying that I wouldn’t feel the helicopter blades when they sliced through my neck.”
As the helicopter crashed, Christie Brinkley said she was worried that its blades would injure her. (Courtesy of Christie Brinkley)
Brinkley wrote that everyone in the helicopter had “walloped, whacked, twisted, and ricocheted across the saddle of that mountain in that terrible Tilt-A-Whirl of a helicopter cabin.” They began rolling and tumbling after they were no longer bouncing around.
“Everything else around me went airborne,” she wrote. “I tried to grab onto something — a seat, a railing, anything— but my entire body felt pinned down, restrained by a force I couldn’t see or stop. Overwhelmed, I closed my eyes and waited to faint, still hoping I wouldn’t feel the blades when they cut into my neck. But then the rolling stopped, the wrecked tips of the rotor blades digging into the mountain as we started to slide.”
Christie Brinkley began modeling in 1973, when she was studying abroad in Paris. (Photo by Ron Galella/Ron Galella Collection via Getty Images)
When Brinkley opened her eyes, she found herself outside the helicopter. She then felt a tug on her leg – her seat belt had wrapped itself around her ski boot. Still attached to the wreckage, Brinkley said she was dragged down a mountain “toward a sheer granite cliff.”
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Christie Brinkley’s daughter with Billy Joel, Alexa Ray Joel, was not with her at the time of the crash. (Courtesy of Christie Brinkley)
“If the wrecked helicopter tumbled over that cliff, I would be going with it,” she wrote. “So, that’s what’s going to kill me? A seat belt strap tangled around my boot? But then, only feet away from the cliff, the helicopter stopped sliding, immobilized by a white wall of snow that had mythically, magically, and wonderfully piled up underneath it.”
No one in the group perished. According to People magazine, rescue helicopters arrived within an hour to help. Everyone was transported to Telluride Medical Center.
While Brinkley was vacationing in Telluride with Alexa Ray Joel, then 8, the child was not in the helicopter, the outlet noted. Brinkley’s husband at the time, Billy Joel, was also away in Chicago on tour.
At the time of the crash, Christie Brinkley and Billy Joel’s marriage was strained. (Sonia Moskowitz/IMAGES/Getty Images)
According to Brinkley’s book, investigators later told the press they were stunned that anyone made it out alive. They called the group’s survival “nothing short of a miracle.”
Christie Brinkley said she struggled with PTSD after the crash. (Courtesy of Christie Brinkley)
While Brinkley survived, she later struggled with PTSD “from the shock of the crash.”
“Every time I held Alexa in my arms, I felt like sobbing,” she told Fox News Digital. “I felt so grateful to be able to continue being her mom… But there was also some bad decision-making… At that point in my life, I felt like I was letting somebody else write the script. I was letting fate take my pen and write the pages.”
However, Brinkley also looked at life through a different lens.
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Christie Brinkley’s memoir “Uptown Girl” is available now. (Harper Influence)
“When I woke up in the morning, I’d look out the window and see a stream of sunlight,” she said. “It was the most beautiful stream of sunlight I’ve ever seen. When I looked at the mountains and I saw the sun hit the snowy peak, it took my breath away. If I was in the ocean, I would see diamonds dancing on top of the water. It was mesmerizing, beautiful. I was just so grateful because I might not have ever seen them again.”
The crash also meant the end of Brinkley’s marriage to Joel. At the time, the couple were separated due to the star’s drinking. However, Brinkley was still hopeful that “my prince had finally come to rescue me.”
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“I waited for Billy to say the words I so badly wanted to hear: ‘I almost lost you, I can’t live without you, I love you,’” she wrote. “I think Billy must have thought I was asleep when he made a phone call… but I was very much awake when I heard him say the words I didn’t ever want to hear: ‘No, don’t worry. I’m not going back to her. I just need to see her through this.’”
Christie Brinkley and Billy Joel on their wedding day in 1985. They divorced in 1994. (Patrick Demarchelier/Trunk Archive)
“And just like that, the dream broke apart like debris,” she wrote. “I knew then that our separation was real and that while I had wanted to believe he couldn’t live without me, apparently, he could. And I was going to have to learn to live without him.”
Brinkley and Joel divorced in 1994.
American property developer Richard Taubman and Christie Brinkley “trauma bonded” after the crash and married in 1994. They called it quits a year later. (GeVinnie Zuffante/Getty Images)
In 2021, Brinkley announced on Instagram that she had undergone hip replacement surgery to fix an injury related to the crash. Today, Brinkley continues to prioritize her health.
Christie Brinkley wrote in her memoir that growing up, she had a deep appreciation for Westerns. (Courtesy of Christie Brinkley)
“If it’s somebody’s birthday, you have to have a piece of cake because it’s not good luck to not take a bite,” she told Fox News Digital. “I’ll just watch my sugar intake the rest of the day. But I just want to treat my body right. It’s no longer called a diet. There’s no denying myself anything.”
“I’ve been a lifelong vegetarian,” she shared. “But about a year ago, I became a vegan, and I’m thrilled that I did it because I have never felt better. I eat lots of grains, beans and all kinds of colorful food.
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Christie Brinkley is seen on April 28, 2025, in New York City. (XNY/Star Max/GC Images/Getty Images)
“I have a rainbow diet because I will eat a lot of brightly colored foods. It’s going to give me a rainbow of vitamins and minerals to fortify the body. And you really, truly are what you eat… I treat myself to good nutrition. There’s no diet because there’s no denying myself of anything.”
