“Took pills. Want to die.”
Alexa Ray Joel, the troubled daughter of singer Billy Joel and supermodel Christie Brinkley, dialed 911 herself and told an operator those words after popping a handful of homeopathic pills Saturday, sources told The Post.
The young woman — allegedly distraught over a failed love affair — had just swallowed eight tablets of Traumeel, an herbal alternative to ibuprofen, which were incapable of killing her. But she still panicked and called the emergency line to get help, sources said.
EMS workers soon received a message from the 911 dispatcher saying: “Female caller. Took eight pills. Wants to die. Now feels funny. Wants to live,” sources said.
They rushed to the young woman’s West Village pad and whisked her off to St. Vincent’s Hospital a few blocks away.
Joel, 23, was released from the hospital later that night and spent yesterday with both of her worried parents, a source close to the family said. The family would not say whether Joel would be taken to a psychiatric hospital for evaluation.
Sources said that there were more pills in the bottle and that Alexa Ray hadn’t seriously intended to harm herself.
“It was more like a cry for help,” one source said.
Her friends and family say she was upset over her breakup with fellow musician and on-again, off-again boyfriend Jimmy Riot.
Riot — who looked red-eyed and disheveled when he answered the door to his Brooklyn apartment yesterday — said only: “I respect the family’s right to privacy. Other than that, I have no comment.”
In addition to her love-life woes, Alexa Ray Joel has struggled to step out of the shadow of her two famous parents and has been working to jump-start a music career.
She dropped out of NYU to focus on her songwriting but has so far been unable to snag a record deal.
Still, for the most part, Joel had been “very happy and healthy,” a family friend said.
“She is surrounded by a bunch of wonderful friends, writing new material and was looking forward to performing at the NYSE tree lighting on Wednesday,” the friend said.
In an eerie coincidence, in 1985, the year Alexa Ray was born, her father wrote a song for the cause of teenage-suicide prevention called “You’re Only Human (Second Wind).”
In the song’s video, a teen devastated after breaking up with his girlfriend prepares to jump off the 59th Street Bridge until Joel intervenes à la the angel in the movie “It’s a Wonderful Life.”
Billy Joel’s own suicide drama — in 1970 — involved him drinking from a bottle of furniture polish. Traumeel, which is said to reduce pain and swelling, contains a dozen herbs and minerals such as echinacea and St. John’s wort.
Additional reporting by Eddie DeMarche, Taylor Vecsey and Selim Algar