Lionel Richie Finally Speaks Out on Infamous ‘80s Brawl Between His Ex-Wives

Men’s Journal aims to feature only the best products and services.  If you buy something via one of our links, we may earn a commission.

In a music career that has spanned nearly 60 years, Lionel Richie has racked up hundreds of only-in-Hollywood stories—and at least one very public scandal he would rather forget.

In his new memoir, Truly, the American Idol host offers up a warts-and-all recounting of his life and career.

In a new interview with People, Richie discussed the impetus behind his new book, explaining: “There are certain things you realize in your life that you got through them because you tried to forget. That’s where the book took many a turn, because it started getting deeper into the emotions of my life. There were some moments when I definitely wanted to remember but there were also others that I had tried to forget and had to dig up.”

One of the moments the “All Night Long”singer would rather forget was a very public incident that happened in June 1988, at the height of Richie’s fame; in his book, the singer refers to it as “the scandal of my century.”

At the time, he had been married to his college sweetheart, Brenda Harvey, for 13 years. “What very few people knew was that Brenda and I were separated,” Richie writes in Truly. “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.”

At the same time, Richie had begun seeing Diane Alexander, a young dancer whom he had met a few years earlier, and appeared in his “Dancing on the Ceiling” video in 1986. Making his way back to Los Angeles from his new beach bachelor pad, Richie stopped by Alexander’s home. 

Shortly after his arrival, there was a knock at the door. 

“When the door opens, Brenda is standing there,” wrote Richie. “There is a massive confrontation. Diane is in total shock and I’m trying to leave, to draw Brenda away. It’s the most awful screaming match of life, and it’s all in this small entryway.”

In an effort to assuage the argument, Richie left—presuming that his estranged wife would follow suit. “But once I was gone, [Brenda] went back and resumed the argument. The neighbors called the police. Charges were brought and then dropped.”

The incident made headlines around the world, but that wasn’t the problem for Richie. “The most painful part, the tragedy of our lives, was that Brenda was heartbroken,” he wrote. “And I get it. Ladies and gentlemen, I get it.”

It was apparently also the moment where Richie realized that his marriage to Brenda, with whom he shared one child—daughter Nicole Richie—was truly over. 

“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.”

Yet it would take another five years for Richie and Brenda’s divorce to be finalized in a very public and bitter breakup. Two years later, in 1995, Richie married Alexander. The couple had two children together, Miles, 31, and Sofia, 27.  

Richie explained to People that his reason for sharing these very personal stories decades later is in the hopes that they might help someone else. “My old expression is ‘If I can tell you how I got through it, it might remind you of some of the things you’re going through and might help you and guide you through your lives.’”