Christie Brinkley slams daughter's surgery speculation

Billy Joel's ex-wife Christie Brinkley has hit back at claims their daughter has gone under the knife to transform her looks and insists she's sick of her child having to deal with critics' cruel comments.

Alexa Ray Joel has been a front row regular during New York Fashion Week this week (begs11Feb13) and her more polished image has sparked rumors she has had work done on her face, as well as breast implants.

The gossip has infuriated her former supermodel mother, who insists her daughter has had to try and cope with negativity over her looks since she was a little girl.

Speaking to newsman Anderson Cooper, she says, "My daughter Alexis, we call a late bloomer and she has blossomed so stunningly.

"First of all, I think my ex-husband and my daughter are both beautiful, talented, wonderful, and it really hurt to see the nasty criticism, the nasty writing, it hurts. It bothers me as a human that our society has gotten to this level. And now, after enduring all this criticism as a child, not a public figure but a child, she's stepping out into the world, she's doing things and now they (critics) can't even accept (it), it's like, 'Oh she's too beautiful, she bought it all, it's all plastic surgery,'... She happens to be endowed very generously."