Lionel Richie is opening up about an infamous 1988 incident involving his first wife, Brenda Harvey, and his second wife, Diane Alexander.
“In June of 1988 came the point of no return. What very few people knew was that Brenda and I were separated,” the “Hello” singer recalled in his new memoir, Truly, published on Tuesday, September 30, per People. “I got a place at the beach, and I was hiding out there, trying to be alone, trying to decompress somehow, because it was killing everyone.”
Richie, 76, wrote that he went to see Alexander, who appeared in his 1986 “Dancing on the Ceiling” music video, at her Beverly Hills apartment when Harvey appeared at the door.
“When the door opens, Brenda is standing there. There is a massive confrontation. Diane is in total shock and I’m trying to leave, to draw Brenda away,” he wrote. “It’s the most awful screaming match of life, and it’s all in this small entryway.”
‘American Idol’ Judges Through the Years and Why They Left
Richie wrote that he hoped his wife would follow him out of the apartment, “but once I was gone, she went back and resumed the argument. The neighbors called the police. Charges were brought and then dropped.”
Harvey was arrested on suspicion of corporal injury to a spouse, resisting arrest and battery following the incident, the Los Angeles Times reported at the time.
“The most painful part, the tragedy of our lives, was that Brenda was heartbroken,” he wrote, per E! News. “You never know what you are going to do or feel until you’re in the moment and it’s in your face. None of us had been in this situation.”
“We all deserved a pass because we didn’t know what the story was going to be. It was just raw and ugly and disastrous,” the American Idol judge continued. “Prior to that morning, I recall there was a cloud of uncertainty as to whether I wanted to try to reconcile and not be separated.”
Lionel Richie Says Daughter Sofia’s Baby Won’t Call Him Grandpa
According to Richie, the incident at Alexander’s apartment helped him decide to end his marriage.
“That’s the saddest day in the life of a marriage,” he wrote. “When you know you may love each other, still, and you have a history that you will always have, but it’s over. And you know it.”
Richie divorced Harvey, with whom he shares adopted daughter Nicole Richie, in 1993. He married Alexander two years later, though they divorced in 2004. Richie and Alexander share two children: Miles, 31, and Sofia, 27.
