Lionel Richie is opening up about a night of chaos between his first and second wives that he’ll never forget.
In his upcoming memoir Truly, excerpted by People, the 76-year-old music icon recalls a 1988 “screaming match” between his first wife, Brenda Harvey, 73, and his then-girlfriend, Diane Alexander, 58.
Richie and Harvey share adopted daughter Nicole Richie, 44, while he later welcomed son Miles, 31, and daughter Sofia, 27, with Alexander.
The Grammy winner split from Harvey in 1993 after 18 years of marriage, then married Alexander in 1995 before divorcing her nine years later.
Richie described the June 1988 blowup as “the point of no return” and even “the scandal of the century.” The headline-making confrontation was later parodied in season two of the animated series The Boondocks.
“What very few people knew was that Brenda and I were separated. 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 wrote in Truly.
That morning, the singer had flown to Los Angeles to see Diane Alexander—but things quickly turned volatile when Brenda Harvey showed up unannounced.
“When the door opens, Brenda is standing there,” Richie recalled. “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.”
Richie said he tried to diffuse the moment by leaving, hoping Brenda would follow—but instead, she returned to Diane Alexander’s home to keep the fight going.
“The neighbors called the police. Charges were brought and then dropped,” he wrote.
Though the clash dominated headlines, Richie remembered it as a deeply personal “tragedy,” especially for Alexander, who was left “heartbroken.”
After what he described as a “raw and ugly and disastrous” showdown, Richie knew his marriage with Harvey had reached its end.
“That’s the saddest day in the life of a marriage,” he reflected. “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.”
Now, decades after his divorce from Alexander, Richie is in a long-term relationship with model Lisa Parigi, who is 40 years his junior.
