On the night of Jan. 28, 1985, the biggest names in music packed into A&M Studios in Los Angeles to record “We Are the World,” the song Michael Jackson wrote with Lionel Richie to raise money for hungry families in Africa. It was the same night as the American Music Awards, so most of the stars were already in town, and Michael was in the booth by 9 p.m. recording his part while the others were still arriving. Christie Brinkley came as Billy Joel’s fiancée. Rolling Stone’s minute-by-minute history of that night says the two married just weeks later, and that the studio was for musicians only. About 500 guests, Christie among them along with Brooke Shields, Jane Fonda and Steve Martin, watched from a party on a soundstage next door.
Christie nearly watched from another room too. She told the story on “Sherri” in April 2025, the day after her memoir came out. It’s called “Uptown Girl,” after the 1983 Billy Joel hit whose music video starred Christie, and HarperCollins published it on April 29, 2025. First she was put in a guest room. Then, she said, “they grabbed me and took me in with the artists.”
That’s how she ended up a few steps from Michael. He wasn’t out front with the other stars, though.
“I see in the middle of all this Michael Jackson sort of hiding behind a potted plant really in the room,” she told host Sherri Shepherd. “I think he got overwhelmed by all the people.” Then she added, “He was very shy.”
So Christie walked over to check on him. Listen for the question she asked; she gets to it at about 1:13 in the clip below.
Christie Brinkley tells Sherri Shepherd how she found Michael at “We Are the World”
This is the official clip from the “Sherri” show’s YouTube channel, and it runs just under three minutes. Christie describes the guest room at about 0:39, spots Michael at about 0:55 and walks up to him at about 1:13.
“Hey, Michael, are you okay?” she asked. “Oh, yeah. I’m okay. I just… needed a little break,” he told her. Then he turned the question around: “Are you from here in LA?”
It was small talk at first. Her answer changed that.
Christie told him she lived in the Hamptons, “on the ocean, just like where I grew up in Malibu.” And Christie says Michael told her this: “Malibu? The Hamptons? I’ve never even seen the ocean.”
“You’ve never put your feet in the ocean?” she asked him. He said no.
“Well, then you’re coming to my house,” Christie told him. “I want to introduce you to the ocean.” That whole exchange starts at about 1:31 in the clip. It’s her memory of a short conversation from 40 years ago, and we only have her side of what Michael said that night.
She had a reason to make the offer. Not long before, she’d done the very same thing for an Amish family who were working on her barn, she told Sherri at about 2:00. She took them down to the water, and the women, still in their thick black stockings, ended up “dancing in the edge of the water.”
“So I really wanted to give that to Michael,” she said. “But I never got a chance.”