Christie Brinkley and singer Billy Joel’s daughter, Alexa Ray Joel, insists she wasn’t trying to kill herself when she took an overdose.

The musician, who is the , was hospitalized last December after taking an overdose of painkillers, but says she was “panicking” over the end of her relationship with her first love, Jimmy Riot.

“I wasn’t trying to hurt myself, I wasn’t trying to kill myself. I was panicked, I was not thinking clearly at all. I was in so much pain and I just wanted to numb it. He helped me get my band together, my career, my sexuality as a woman, I associated with him. So when he left I didn’t know what I was supposed to do. I didn’t know who I was. It took me so much work, heavy, heavy work to get to the point where I could feel OK on my own.”

Alexa, 24, also spoke of her desire for people to not compare her with her famous parents and judge her music on its own merits: “Everybody gets it - I’m their daughter. But I have my own voice, I have my own sound and I have a big personality. You might want to take a listen.”