Alexa Ray Joel’s new outlook

Alexa Ray Joel is trying to give her life a complete makeover. The 24-year-old singer and daughter of Billy Joel and Christie Brinkley says she was “in a dark place” last December, when she swallowed 15 homeopathic pills after getting dumped by her longtime boyfriend, musician Jimmy Riot. “I was addicted to this man, and it spiraled out of control,” Joel tells Liza Hamm in People.

Joel says she hit “rock bottom” last year when Riot refused to accept a Christmas gift she’d sent. “I didn’t want to get dressed. I didn’t want to put on makeup. I wasn’t feeling anything.” Despondent, Joel swallowed the pills the day after the incident and called 911. Joel was hospitalized and spent two weeks in a treatment facility for her depression, where she “cried for days” after Riot refused to visit or call her. Finally, with the help of her therapists, she realized that she “didn’t need him.”

Joel says she was always embarrassed to go to her famous parents for help, but since her ordeal, she’s been relying on them for support. “Dad helped me get my perspective back, and my mom and I have more heart-to-hearts.” To complete her makeover, she recently had a nose job to minimize her father’s prominent schnoz. “I think I look more like me than my father’s daughter’s now,” she says. “Everything is new.”

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