Superstar Couples

It is game over for actress Denise Richards and Bon Jovi guitarist Richie Sambora, who broke up about two months ago, Denise’s rep confirms to the US press.
It was a decision Denise undertook after a long-year battle with the photographers and the press, which painted her as the evil homewrecker and a bad friend.
This week an article in Glamour came out describing of what she felt on the whole brouhaha. In it she disclosed her misgivings, her painful divorce with Charlie Sheen and her affair with Richie.
The actress reiterated that there was any truth that she ever stole the rocker from Heather Locklear. And that her friendship with the “Melrose Place” star was on the verge of breaking before she toyed the idea of hooking up with the guitarist.
After deciding to separate from Charlie, the actress remembered that both public and the press were kind enough to show their support until she ended up with Heather’s former husband. It broke her heart, she said.

A year later, when I started dating Richie [Sambora], I was on the cover of every tabloid again. But this time people weren’t so kind. Suddenly, the world hated me. I was called a husband stealer and a backstabber in the press—and I can’t even repeat most of what was said about me on the Internet. Even an acquaintance of mine said, “You look like you enjoy the attention you’re getting.” I was like, are you kidding me? Do you honestly think I want to be on magazine covers for this? I was devastated. It felt absolutely horrible to hear those kinds of things said about me, and there were days when I just lost it and cried.

Still she didn’t want to elaborate what caused the rift between her and former best friend Heather. And no, it wasn’t because of Richie.
She insisted that she wouldn’t ever discuss it to protect their children. Denise went particularly sour on how the press treated her.

The first time Richie and I were photographed together, we were on his balcony, overlooking a private beach in Laguna. Apparently there was a photographer a quarter of a mile away, in the ocean. The next day, I got a phone call from my publicist. She said, “They found out about you and Richie.” From that moment on, 10 cars full of paparazzi followed me around at all times. For two months, the story was on the cover of every tabloid, with headlines like “Denise Steals Heather’s Husband” and “Betrayed!” Paparazzi were climbing over the fence to try to get shots of me inside my house. I had to hire a security guard to live with me and I kept the shades down at all times. It was awful.

She also described on how the press tried to manipulate her life.

In May, Richie went on tour in Europe and I decided to go with him. The paparazzi not only found out about it and followed me to the airport, they even got on the plane with me! When I got there, they were waiting at the hotel. They were everywhere. And the text that accompanied the photos was horrible too. If I was smiling and playing in the park with my kids, the caption would read, “She’s a press hound; she trots her kids around town for publicity.” If I looked serious, they would say, “She’s miserable; she’s depressed.” There were so many times I wanted to open my mouth and say, “That’s not true!” But I couldn’t, because I was trying to handle things privately. The worst part was hearing people say what an awful person I am. I don’t think I’ll really ever be able to completely describe what that period of my life was like—I’d never felt worse.

She also explained her sudden outburst when the paparazzi went overboard.

Finally, I couldn’t take it anymore. I was in Vancouver shooting a movie when I was involved in a terrible incident with a paparazzo. From what I remember, he had already photographed me and asked for another photo. I said, “If I give you a couple of pictures, will you stop shooting and allow me to focus on my scene?” He made a nasty remark and launched into derogatory comments about my family. That was it for me: I just snapped. I grabbed his laptop and threw it over a balcony, where it landed on the ground. You can imagine what they said about me in the tabloids after that.

At the moment the photographers who are suing Denise didn’t support her story. As the actress was undergoing “awful” handling from the papararazzi she found an unlikely friendship from “Blonde and Blonder” co-star Pamela Anderson, who defended Denise writing in her blog: “If it were me I would’ve thrown the photographers over the edge – they got lucky.”

She also implied that “there are two sides to every story.”
Still she would like to stay as Richie’s friend. Early this year both of them revealed that their parents were suffering from cancer. Last month she attended the funeral of Richie’s father.
Richie’s source calls the split “amicable.”

Sources 1&2

Denise Richards, Richie Sambora, Pamela Anderson