Katie Lee Joel
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Katie Lee Joel (born 1981 in Huntington, West Virginia) is a celebrity and television personality. She is primarily known as the current wife of the prolific musician Billy Joel.
While a journalism student at Ohio's Miami University, Joel studied at the British Institute in Florence, Italy, and taught dining courses in Tuscany. After graduation, she worked as an intern for West Virginia Senator Jay Rockefeller, while also working part-time at a wine shop. She is an initiated member of Kappa Alpha Theta.
After moving to the Hamptons to pursue a career in the culinary field, she became a television restaurant critic for the PBS cooking series George Hirsch: Living It Up! She also wrote a regular culinary and lifestyle column, "East End Girl," in Hamptons Magazine, and appeared on numerous television programs such as Extra, Life and Style.
She married musician Billy Joel at his home in Oyster Bay, Long Island, on October 2, 2004. Alexa Ray Joel, Billy's 19-year-old daughter from his marriage to Christie Brinkley, served as maid of honor. The couple reside in the Hamptons.
In July 2005, Joel created the now defunct foodie website OliveAndPeach.com with partner Aleishall Girard. The website ceased updating in September 2006.
In 2006, she hosted the reality series Top Chef on BravoTV. While the show received generally good critical reviews and viewer ratings, Joel was widely criticized by TIME magazine and others for her "listless" and "robotic" hosting style. She was fired and replaced by Padma Lakshmi for the second season of Top Chef.
