Tuesday morning, Christie Brinkley spoke to TODAY's Matt Lauer and memorably choked up while discussing the ongoing battles she has had with ex-husband Peter Cook. On Wednesday, Cook stirred the pot further, sitting down with TODAY's Savannah Guthrie to defend himself.

Cook said his former wife of 12 years lied about "virtually everything" she said on the show Tuesday. "The entire content of her interview was a lie where she claims that I am harassing and bullying her on a daily basis," he said, adding that they haven't had a conversation in four years or emailed in two years. "So this perception that I am harassing and bullying her is -- is nonsense."

He called Brinkley's welling up toward the end of her interview "crocodile tears" and said ever since they separated, she's been "on a campaign to smear me. There is no Peter Cook press machine. I have no interest in the press. I'm not a celebrity. You don't hear about Peter Cook until Christie Brinkley dredges something up from the past to make herself relevant in the media again."

That said, there is something they can come together on: Each calls the other "narcissistic."

Cook doesn't deny that he is one, and says it makes him a great dad. "Narcissism makes you focus attention on something," he said. "You can either be focused entirely on yourself ... and you can also focus your energies on your child and say, 'I'm always thinking, I'm thinking ahead of what they're going to need.'"

That said, he believes all of this public battling is "terrible for my children." (And the kids are reacting: 16-year-old Jack has refused to see Cook, though he told Guthrie he has a good relationship with 13-year-old Sailor.) And he admits he's no role model.

"If I were a role model, I would just sit back and keep taking the beatings and bruisings," he said, then echoed her statements: "I want peace. I want peace for my family. I want peace for myself. I want to be able to do my job, see my kids and live without the Christie Brinkley shadow over me. That's all I ask."

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Four years of fighting with your ex can take a toll on anyone, and while 58-year-old Christie Brinkley looks pretty terrific, she's also worn out from her ongoing legal battles with her ex, Peter Cook. She sat down with TODAY's Matt Lauer Tuesday in the hopes of talking both divorce and her return next week to Broadway's "Chicago," but ... but things didn't turn out quite as planned.

Instead, they started out and continued talking almost exclusively about Brinkley vs. Cook, with Brinkley tearing up and choking on her words.

"I have turned the other cheek," she said, adding that her former spouse of 12 years has repeatedly taken to the airwaves to air their dirty laundry. "There's not one quote from me, anywhere. This is the first time I've ever been on a show (to talk about the split)."

She revealed that Cook pays $600 per month for each of their children, though he has been quoted as saying he pays "double" what's required by courts. "It's a very minimal amount of money," she said. "And it wasn't (about) the money. I have hesitated to do anything with the court because he actually likes the publicity and he likes going to court."

While Cook has called Brinkley a "narcissistic egomaniac," Brinkley seems to feel much the same way about him: "I have never taken part in name calling. The only thing I've ever said ... at the end of that (second) trial I said as a public service, 'Google "divorcing a narcissist."' ... I'm not alone. I've gotten hundreds of letters from women that are going through this. It's not easy."

Lauer was concerned about the impact all of this back-and-forth between the parents was having on their teenaged children; Brinkley returned that there should be "legislation that protects families from a spouse who has been diagnosed by the court-appointed forensic psychiatrist as a  bona fide malignant or extreme narcissist.... This is something the courts need to come to grips with."

But as time wound down, and there was little chat of "Chicago," Brinkley lost her own grip. While telling Lauer she has not been in touch with Cook for two years, though "he continues to contact me," she said she asked a judge to "please make this stop, protect my right to peace. I just want peace for my family."

Tears welling in her eyes, Brinkley said, "I just want peace. And every time I have any joy or any kind of success in anything, he has to try to destroy it."

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