Heather Locklear: A rollercoaster ride through love and heartache

Heather Locklear has always been one of my all time favorite celebs.

The blue-eyed bombshell worked her way up and starred in iconic shows such as Dynasty and Melrose Place, earning millions of dollars. But her love life has been plagued by scandals and messy divorces.

Read on to learn why her family is deeply worried and feels ”helpless” about the star’s current lifestyle, and discover the events that led to her unfortunate decline.

Hollywood can be such a cruel place. You’re on top of the world one moment, and then they cast you aside like garbage. Just ask Heather Locklear—she knows all about it.

In recent years, countless tabloids have detailed her personal struggles, reveling in her alleged substance and alcohol abuse. However, the reality is that Heather Locklear’s tragedies began early in life.

Touched twice by tragedy

We’ve seen it so many times before—a quintessential All-American girl makes a spectacular breakthrough. She’s beautiful, successful, and has high-profile relationships. For Heather, it all started in high school.

With her blonde hair, big blue eyes, and dazzling smile, it was impossible for her to go unnoticed. Back then, many compared her to the legendary Farrah Fawcett.

So, from the outside, everything seemed perfect. But was that really the case?

Looking at what the Melrose Place star has said in old interviews paints a different picture. Despite her eventual success and recognition, she struggled with self-image issues during her youth.

Heather described herself as a shy child, with ”bony elbows, acne, and braces.” She dreamed of being part of her high school cheerleading squad – but was considered too skinny and weak.

At home, however, there were no major issues, and Heather has described her childhood as loving and happy.

The actress has often spoken warmly about her parents, and praised their strong marriage. Her mother was a production executive and her father was a former colonel in the Marine Corps.

”My father was a Marine colonel, very loving, but there’d be a look in his eyes when he was displeased,” Heather told New York Times.

Family catastrophe

However, there were terrible things that shook Heather’s childhood, things no child should have to experience up close.

When she was only 16, her uncle committed suicide. In 1986, Locklear’s 27-year-old cousin also took his own life, shooting himself with a handgun.

The tragic deaths sent shockwaves through the Locklear family. The terrible events still make Heather freeze when they arise in conversation.

The TV audience had no idea about this when Heather rose to fame. Many saw her as a ‘nice girl’ – almost bordering on boring. But all of this was to change with her first marriage. Because the person she tied the knot with was anything but ordinary.

Dancing with Tom Cruise

After her breakthrough in the prime-time soap opera Dynasty, Heather was often seen in the arm of rock greats and other talented actors.

After an audition in the early 1980s, Tom Cruise and Heather Locklear developed a bit of a liking for each other. It wasn’t exactly dating, but Heather recounted their wild night together in an episode of Chelsea Lately.

According to Heather, the duo decided to hang out one evening because Tom didn’t have many friends in Tinseltown at the time. Tom was, of course, thrilled to spend the evening with a big and beautiful star like Heather. Although Tom himself was an upcoming actor and had found success with Risky Business, he wasn’t quite on Heather’s level.

Apparently, Tom Cruise showcased some of his crazy moves from Risky Business, which left Heather a bit bewildered. ”You just kind of stand there and don’t know what to do,” she recalled and continued: ”Do you dance around him?”

The actress decided to sit back and watch as Cruise worked his magic. And that was the end of it, the couple didn’t go on any more dates after that night.

Scott Baio relationship

Scott Baio’s combination of charm, acting talent, and roles in popular TV shows made him a big star in the 80s’. The Hollywood heartthrob was a hot commodity among many girls during this time, but he found himself falling for Heather Locklear.

”Heather Locklear was the first girl I was ever in love with,” Scott Baio told People and added: “She is the greatest chick in the world, and I just ruined it.”

The duo first met in 1983, during the shooting of Battle of the Network Stars. Scott was captivated by Heather’s beauty and fell head over heels for her. The feeling was mutual, but their relationship eventually fell apart. The reason? Scott Baio couldn’t commit seriously.

Dating Mark Harmon

NCIS star Mark Harmon hasn’t always been married to his beloved Pam Dawber. Before their wedding, Mark was one of Hollywood’s most sought-after bachelors.

In 1986, People magazine even voted him the sexiest man alive. At the time, Mark was making waves as Dr. Robert Caldwell on St. Elsewhere and could have had his pick of single women in Hollywood, though he might not have fully realized his own popularity. His co-star, Cristina Pickles, who played nurse Helen Rosenthal on St. Elsewhere, once remarked on how women reacted to seeing Harmon.

“Mark’s sensitivity shows through that handsome face, and women love that,” she told People in 1986. “I don’t think he is fully aware of his effect on women.”

“Forget Mel Gibson,” actor Donna Mills said. “Whenever I see Mark, I think to myself, ‘Your place or mine?’”

Heather Locklear had, of course, also noticed Mark Harmon, and they had a brief fling in 1984. They would probably have made a great couple, but fate had other plans. Their romance was short-lived, according to the NCIS star.

“It began around Christmas [1984] but was over by New Year’s,” Mark recalled and said that Heather was “just an emotional cup of coffee to me.”

First marriage

In 1985, Heather Locklear started dating the fast-living Mötley Crüe drummer Tommy Lee. The two first met at an REO Speedwagon concert.

”He was a bad boy, and that image was exciting to me. Maybe it was my way of rebelling,” she said.

Sadly, the marriage began to falter quite quickly. Despite this, the couple stayed married for almost eight years.

”I really loved Tommy – well, for a brief time”, she said. ”I gave it my best”.

Their original plan was to stay together for life, and Heather often spoke about only getting married once.

“I think we’ll be the coolest grandma and grandpa in the world,” Tommy Lee excitedly said in an interview with People shortly after their union. “We’ll be like 85 or 90; I’ll still be a rock pig, and Heather will still be gorgeous.”

In 1993, the couple went their separate ways, but Heather would soon find love again.

Heather Locklear and Richie Sambora

Just one year after her divorce, Heather Locklear found love again, this time with rock star Richie Sambora, lead guitarist for Bon Jovi. Their paths crossed in New York during one of Heather’s Melrose Place PR trips.

Amidst speculations about whether she had taken enough time to heal from her first failed marriage, Heather and Richie faced initial challenges, living on opposite coasts of the USA — he in New Jersey and she in California. However, despite the distance, the couple seemed to make it work.

In 1994, they tied the knot in a New Jersey civil service. Not content with just one celebration, the newlyweds jetted off to Paris for another ceremony shortly after.

Having been previously married to the wild Tommy Lee, the then-33-year-old Dynasty/T.J. Hooker/Melrose Place star expressed that she found something different and special in Richie Sambora.

”He’s really grounded, really family oriented, and very close to his parents,” she noted of Sambora in 1998. ”Who I am as a person is really who Richie is as a person…. We mirror each other.”

On the other hand, Sambora had also lived a hard rock ‘n’ roll life; there were rumors of him dating Cher, among others. But when he saw Heather, his life changed.

”I had a great time dating women,” he recalled. ”But the minute I met my wife, I knew I was done. That was it. I think the same thing happened to her.”

According to Heather, her second marriage was very different compared to the first time she walked down the aisle.

”I handled it so differently from my first marriage,” she said in 1996 and continued:

”I told him, ‘This is who I am and this is what I want’”.

The couple spent their weekends at their mountain home in Lake Arrowhead, outside of Los Angeles.

”We are very boring. We go out to dinner to the same three restaurants and eat the same things. We like to sit around and talk,” Heather said.

In many ways, Heather and Richie seemed to live like any ordinary married couple, despite their celebrity status.

”By all accounts, they were a perfect couple,” Jamie Bufalino, senior editor at People magazine, said. “Many of their friends envied their relationship.”

In 1997, the couple welcomed their only child, daughter Ava. When she was a little kid, Ava was often seen on-stage during concerts with Jon Bon Jovi. Sometimes, she introduced them to the audience and even danced with the band members.

Being the daughter of two big stars, her not-so-average upbringing could easily have been a nightmare. But instead, it looks like she turned out fine –Ava is a very smart and highly-educated woman today (check here).

Unfortunately, her parents’ marriage didn’t fare as well.

Breakup with Sambora

Rumors of the couple’s impending breakup swirled, with some tabloids claiming that their disputes revolved around whether to have a second child.

The speculation reached a point where Heather and Richie eventually had to address the reports.

”The real story is that there is no story. The truth is that after 11 years together, we are still happily married. Boring but true,” the couple said in a joint statement to the New York Daily News, in December 2005.

A few months later, the situation took a different turn. After eleven years as husband and wife, Heather Locklear filed for divorce. She cited irreconcilable differences, a typical reason in celebrity divorces. However, the fallout of Heather’s filing for divorce was anything but typical.

It all started when Heather’s publicist spread the news of the divorce in February 2006. However, there was a problem – Richie Sambora had no idea that his wife wanted to split up.

The rocker was taken aback by the news, because the message apparently didn’t reach the rocker, who had been on tour recently. And he fired back when reporters asked what had happened between the couple. Richie claimed that the reports of their divorce were ”completely untrue” and that he was in the midst of making plans for Valentine’s Day with his wife.

But the fact was that Heather had indeed filed for divorce. And as the days went by, more and more dirty details began to emerge. According to People, Heather had stumbled upon an email sent to Richie Sambora from a woman they both knew. The email contained provocative pictures.

That discovery was the last straw, leaving Heather ”absolutely devastated.” Sambora, however, vehemently denies any marital indiscretion.

Heather Locklear and Denise Richards, what happened?

But the turmoil surrounding her divorce didn’t end there. The breakup also caused a rift between Heather and her close friend Denise Richards. Shortly after the divorce, Richie Sambora began dating Denise, who was also going through a highly publicized and tough split from Charlie Sheen. Since Charlie and Heather had become friends after working together on the TV show Spin City, the two couples were well-acquainted.

The divorces brought Denise and Richie together, and they eventually fell in love, which naturally didn’t sit well with Heather. There was speculation that a possible affair between Richie and Denise was the real reason for Heather’s divorce, though Denise has denied this. What is clear, however, is that Richie and Denise’s relationship deeply hurt Heather.

“The thing with Heather, that’s been hard,” Denise Richards told Entertainment Tonight in 2006. “You can’t help who you fall for and that friendship, unfortunately, was done and wasn’t salvageable.”

According to Denise, she and Heather were never “best friends,” and she didn’t steal her friend’s husband, as some malicious rumors suggested. Getting together with Richie was the last thing she wanted, but it couldn’t be helped once they fell for each other.

”We (her and Sambora) were friends and we were both going through divorces, and that’s what drew us to each other … I did not steal someone’s husband. Did I date a former friend’s ex-husband? Yes. Did I break up a marriage? No,” Richards told Us Weekly.

The relationship between Denise Richards and Richie Sambora was short-lived. They broke up in early 2007 but remained friends afterward. The couple gave it another try in 2011, but ultimately decided to stay friends.

Relationship today

Despite the tumultuous circumstances surrounding their divorce, Heather and Richie have managed to maintain a good relationship. Many years after their split, Richie Sambora spoke with People and revealed that he and Heather still love each other.

”Time does heal old wounds. I mean, I still love Heather and I know she loves me. She’s the mother of my child, man. What can you say?,” Richie explained.

Of course, their beloved daughter Ava plays a key role in maintaining healthy communication between them. Both of her parents are incredibly supportive, and when Ava Sambora walked the catwalk at the White Trash Beautiful Spring 2011 Fashion Show, Heather and Richie were there, standing side by side. They have also been together for several Christmas and Thanksgiving celebrations.

”We’re very good. It’s actually even beyond for [our daughter’s] sake,” Richie told Access Hollywood in 2012. ”Heather and I really respect each other, and we’ve become better friends, I think, now that we’re not married.”

The past few years have, as many know, been quite tough for Heather Locklear. She has been arrested multiple times and has struggled with alcohol and medication addiction. The first worrying sign came in 2008, when someone who claimed to be Locklear’s doctor called 911 and said that the star was trying to kill herself.

Emergency responders rushed to her house and the police investigated the matter, but afterward, Heather’s publicist said the alarm was false. However, the police believed the call was genuine.

Unfortunately, Heather’s decline continued, and she has received treatment for addiction 20 times. Not long after that alarming call in 2008, the six-time Golden Globe nominee checked herself into an Arizona medical center for anxiety and depression treatment. In 2018, Richie Sambora revealed that he had hired a team of specialists to care for Locklear after she once again faced issues with alcohol and was arrested for domestic violence and battery against a police officer.

Richie helped arrange and cover the costs so that Heather could remain at a long-term care residence, where some of the best doctors and psychiatrists could assist her.

”I will of course always be there for Heather and especially Ava. I am very proud of my daughter for her composure and strength during this difficult time,” Richie Sambora told Daily Mail.

In recent years, Heather seems to have been more stable, and she reportedly has been sober for many years now. Unfortunately, in 2023, some concerning images of her were published, sparking worries about her well-being once more.

The New York Post released photos showing Locklear behaving erratically and talking to herself in public, raising concerns that she might be struggling again.

We sincerely hope that Heather is doing well today. It’s not easy to achieve the level of TV stardom she did, with all that entails.

But she seems to be a genuinely wonderful woman, so we wish her all the wellness in the world and hope she finds happiness for many years to come. Let’s send her positive vibes and love as she continues her journey.