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Mental health has always been at the forefront of Alexa Ray Joel’s life.
On Sunday, Aug. 3, Alexa — who’s the daughter of Billy Joel and Christie Brinkley — will serve as the Hope for Depression Research Foundation’s celebrity grand marshal at the 10th annual Race of Hope to Defeat Depression in Southhampton Village.
Speaking with PEOPLE about the role, the “Seven Years” singer, 39, says “it’s a very personal cause.”
“Depression runs in my family. I’ve seen my father struggle with it. I’ve seen my grandmother struggle, and personally, I’ve experienced it as well,” she says, adding that she’s “doing better these days and exercise really helps.”
“I’ve always struggled with it. I sort of describe depression as feeling like you have this non-existential sort of weight,” she continues. “It’s not literal, you can’t see it, right? You can’t grasp it. But it’s just this weight in the back of your mind, where things just feel heavy. For me, I don’t know that I would say that I have chronic depression. It kind of comes and goes.”
Alexa has long been open about her journey with mental health and heartbreak. Looking back at her upbringing, she says her father “struggled with depression his whole life,” which is why she finds it “extremely important to shed light.”
“And his mother. My wonderful, I miss her so much, my grandmother, Nanny, struggled with bipolar disorder,” she says. “It was undiagnosed, because this was back in the ’50s, when mental health wasn’t fully understood… There was a very negative stigma around it. But it was discovered in the later years that it was bipolar disorder.”
Alexa Ray Joel/Instagram
In Billy’s recent HBO docuseries, Billy Joel: And So It Goes, the “Piano Man” singer, 76, gets candid about his ups and downs, which Alexa considers a “double-edged sword.”
“He had to go through so much, and so much struggle. But there’s also a lot of beauty that came out of that, with all of these incredible songs,” she says. “And I think it makes him so much more relatable as a man, who has had these struggles, and has been so transparent about it.”
“It’s a story of resilience, really. It really shows people, if you think you can’t get through something, or you think you’ve hit rock bottom, you can still come up from that. I mean, you look at my dad, and I joke to him. I’m like, ‘Dad, are you like a cat? You’ve had nine lives.’ He’s been through so much heartbreak and loss, but then, so many wonderful things,” she says.
“I think it shows what a survivor he is,” Alexa adds.
As for the Aug. 3 race — which raised over $500,000 to fund critical mental health research last year — Alexa is excited to raise awareness through physical activity.
“Ending the negative stigma for mental health has always been a predominant priority and cause for me. If they ask me to be there, I’m there. I’m just excited to be with a community that’s so supportive to this,” she says.
For anyone interested in taking part in the race, you can follow the link to register here.
