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 describes 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.
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.
