Richie Sambora talked with People before the band’s benefit concert at Manhattan’s Hammerstein Ballroom about what he was trying to deal with in his personal life when he checked into rehab last year.
“I got divorced [from Heather Locklear], I was going through a custody battle, I was having alcohol addiction problems, my dad was dying,” he went on to say: “It was a gang tackle from hell, basically, and crawling out of that wreckage was a very triumphant victory.”
Richie checked into the famed Cirque Lodge in Utah for a week last September and credits his recovery from the support he received from his friends, his band and “Oh man, my mom, especially.”
Tuesday’s concert was dedicated to his late father, who died last year from lung cancer. Bon Jovi launched a yearlong concert series for the non-profit Stand For A Cure which will benefit Memorial Sloan-Kettering Center Cancer Center in Manhattan, where Richie’s father was treated.