Christie Brinkley’s tragic Lost Love before Billy Joel: Dashing Champagne -Emergent died at Race -Crash in 27 years old

Christie Brinkley was swept in a fairy tale romanticism with a devastating end one year before her tumultuous association with Hitmaker Billy Joel started.

The super modelFamous for her Peppy smile and California Girl Looks, was fresh from an eight-year marriage with the French artist Jean-François Allaux when she first made contact with another Frenchman, Champagne irivier Chandon de Brailles in 1982.

Chandon was the handsome only son of billionaire Frederic Chandon de Brailles, chairman of the Moët-Hennessy Group, who forged a career in driving in the racing car.

A casual encounter with the Uber-rich Moët-Chandon NEPO BABY bee NYC Hotspot Studio 54 led to ‘Love at First Sight’ for the Sports illustrated icon.

They quickly became one of the power pairs of the 80s, but friction arose about Chandon’s wish to drive a professional racing car – despite his family and Brinkley’s reported doubts about his chosen career.

On March 2, 1983, Brinkley’s worst fears were realized when the sport with a high octane killed Chandon claimed in a freak crash in West Palm Beach, Florida.

He was only 27 years old.

Less than an hour before his death, a deep -driven Brinkley had made plans to meet Chandon that evening.

The fateful first meeting of the couple came on a soiree to promote the 1982 Christie Brinkley calendar.

A beaten chandon then sent her a dozen white roses with a note: “I hope to see you again before the flowers die.”

Brinkley said it was ‘love at first sight’ when she first closed her eyes with Chandon, a French burger who had moved to New York City to study.

Chandon had visited the exclusive Le Rosey School in Switzerland and had served to the French Air Force.

His passion for racing started in Europe, where he participated in his first race of just 18 years.

He moved to New York City in 1979 to study marketing and work in the sales department of United Technologies before resuming his racing career.

Described as ‘blessed with great charm and balance’, Chandon spoke fluently five languages, had a black belt in Taekwondo and was also an ‘fervent skydiver’.

Their romance went into strength to strength and the controversial couple joined countless shimmering parties, where Brinkley regularly saw that he supported the race track.

The only cloud on the horizon of romance was concern about the calling of Chandon.

He dropped the De Brailles of his name because of his family concern about safety in sports, per Motorsport Memorial.

Chandon only competed once in the 1982 Formula Super Lee USA with Wilbur Bunce Racing and in a Ralt RT5 (Volkswagen), ending in 43rd position – but he was determined to prove himself in the ruthless racing car world.

His last days were spent on preparing the Formula Atlantic season with the Fred opens Racing team of New York.

For an amount of $ 600 per day, the Moroso Motorsport Park team rented – now known as the Palm Beach International Raceway – to test the new Ralt and an older car from 1983.

On Tuesday, March 1, the day before his death, Chandon drove more than 100 miles in the older car to acclimatize themselves with the track.

The next day, Chandon climbed in the new Atlantic car of the Ralt formula and started driving around the B-Line Highway of the park.

At the age of tenth around the track, the car left the road and collapsed in a barrier at more than 100 km / h.

The vehicle catapulted 12 meters from the track in a canal with a helpless chandon with its feet attached to the car.

Although his injuries were survival, he could not escape and drown.

When it was told about the accident, a distraught Christie remained in California.

Then sgt from Palm Beach Sheriff. JJ Andersen said that the father of the driver, Frederic, who was the owner of the car, was expected to fly from France to Florida.

He said: “He will meet the racing team to discuss what happened. Nobody said there was a mechanical failure, but we will keep looking at it. ‘

The medical researcher of Palm Beach confirmed that there were no signs of success for the head or body inventions that may have contributed to his death. His cause of death was confirmed as ‘suffocation through drowning’.

The cause of the accident remains a mystery to this day – with a fixed throttle or director error as possible theories.

Chandon is buried in the LaTerte-sur-Aube Cemetery, Haute-Marne, France.

Brinkley continued shortly after Chandon’s death with musician Joel.

The couple met for the first time in January 1983, two months before the Chandon crash, while they were both on holiday in St. Barts.

The piano man singer explained that he had reached contact with Brinkley after he had heard her boyfriend had died to offer his condolences, they saved a friendship and the things eventually became romantic.

The two began to date while he still had a relationship with Elle Macpherson, as Billy wrote in his memoirs 2014, Billy Joel: The Definitive Biography, that he once brought Christie at home while Elle was already sleeping in his bed.

More than four decades after his death, Chandon remained in a now 71-year-old Brinkley’s thoughts and memories.

She reflects on their relationship in her new memoirs, Uptown Girl, and rather revealed that she had to take free time from her modeling career to rebuild after Chandon’s death.

She said, ‘I remember I got close [starring in Darryl Hannah film] Splash but that was when my friend Olivier was killed in the car accident. And I just had to take a little sabbatical. ‘