Billy Joel and Katie Lee Joel
I’m not invested in the marriage of Billy Joel and his third wife, Katie Lee. Even though Katie is 27 years old, compared to the 60-year-old Billy Joel she has always seemed like a child-bride to me. They got married when she was 23 – just four years older than his daughter Alexa Ray – and in the past four years, Katie has managed to build a half-decent career for herself as some kind of professional foodie, launching a now-defunct website, writing about food for magazines, making guest appearances on television shows, and hosting the first season of Top Chef.

There seems to be trouble in gold-digging child-bride paradise though. The Enquirer is reporting a juicy rumor that Billy Joel is convinced that Katie has been cheating on him – with 36-year-old Israeli designer Yigal Azrouel. Azrouel’s stuff has been in Vogue, and he seems like a half-decent designer, favoring those sort of urban-combat-luxe kind of designs. So what’s an up-and-coming, straight fashion designer doing with the Pianoman’s trophy wife? I have no idea, but apparently Billy Joel has convinced himself they’re up to no good, and Billy has already contacted his divorce lawyers:

“Take a hike!”

With those angry words, Billy Joel pulled the plug on his four-and-a-half-year marriage to much-younger wife Katie Lee during an explosive fight in mid-June, The ENQUIRER has learned exclusively.

The 60-year-old Piano Man, who’s been married twice before, has already retained a top lawyer and is expected to hit the courthouse again soon to file for divorce from Katie Lee, 27, say close sources.

The final straw for the superstar musician was his young wife’s refusal to end her cozy relationship with Yigal Azrouel, a handsome 36-year-old Israeli-born fashion designer.

In our April 20 issue, The ENQUIRER reported that Katie Lee had been seeing Yigal for nearly a year. She’d moved out of Billy’s Long Island mansion to the New York condo they have – just blocks from Yigal’s boutique.

Billy, who had been away for months on a long concert tour, was told by close pals that Katie Lee was up to no good – and that he should dump her.

Their final fight occurred when Katie Lee asked Billy to accompany her to an event she was hosting in the Hamptons on June 13, said the source.

“He snapped, ‘So now you want me to be by your side and play your happy husband?! Take a hike!'”

[From The National Enquirer]

Of course this is nothing but a rumor printed in the Enquirer. But there’s a whiff of believability to it. How many of these trophy-wife situations work out in the long run? Especially with the age difference that huge? It’s not as if Katie Lee is some kind of Catherine Zeta-Jones type of woman, who could make the situation work in the long-run. And perhaps if Billy Joel was so concerned about his wife playing around, he shouldn’t go on tour for months at a time. My guess is we’ll see Billy filing for divorce in the coming months.

Billy Joel and Katie Lee Joel are shown on 5/4/09 and 6/15/09. Credit: PRPhotos

Katie Lee Joel

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