Taking Names

Joel daughter ODs

Alexa Ray Joel, the daughter of pop star Billy Joel and supermodel Christie Brinkley, was hospitalized after taking eight pills at her Manhattan apartment, a law enforcement official said Saturday.

A friend frantically called 911 shortly after noon Saturday from the singer’s Greenwich Village apartment saying Joel, 23, had taken several pills, the official told Associated Press. According to AP, Miss Joel took eight pills, although officials didn’t know what kind she had ingested, an official said. It wasn’t clear whether she had accidentally overdosed or attempted suicide, said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Miss Joel is hospitalized in stable condition and receiving treatment, her publicist Claire Mercuri said Saturday. She wouldn’t elaborate.

Her father said she will recover.

“She is going to be fine,” Billy Joel told New York’s Newsday newspaper on Saturday night.

Miss Joel, who was raised in Sag Harbor, a village on Long Island, attended New York University for a short time before dropping out to focus on her music career, according to her MySpace page. Her parents were divorced in 1994 after nine years of marriage.

The singer, songwriter and pianist self-released a short album in 2006 and debuted a new song, “Invisible,” this year about a failed relationship. In a MySpace blog post this summer, Miss Joel described herself as “forgotten” and said she was finding it hard to meet a nice guy.

Weezer singer hurt

The lead singer of the rock band Weezer has suffered minor injuries after the group’s tour bus hit some ice, skidded across the New York State Thruway and slid into a ditch, Associated Press reports.

Police say singer Rivers Cuomo and the band’s assistant were taken to a local hospital following Sunday’s early morning accident in upstate New York, about 40 miles west of Albany. The assistant also suffered minor injuries. Mr. Cuomo’s wife and 2-year-old daughter were also in the bus. They were not hurt, AP said.

State police say the group was driving to Boston when the vehicle struck ice and the driver lost control.

Formed in Los Angeles in 1992, Weezer had a handful of hits two years later with the songs “Undone — The Sweater Song,” “Buddy Holly” and “Say It Ain’t So.”

Luxury lesson

Paris Hilton’s younger brother — Conrad Hilton III, son of hotelier father Richard Hilton — is learning to drive … in style.

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