In his newly launched memoir, Actually, music legend Lionel Richie opens up in regards to the painful and public finish of his first marriage to Brenda Richie, recalling the notorious 1988 confrontation that grew to become “the scandal of my century.”

Richie and Brenda, faculty sweethearts from Tuskegee College, married in 1975 and later adopted daughter Nicole Richie, 44. Nevertheless, amid the peak of his fame with The Commodores and his solo profession, their relationship fractured.

Richie writes that by June 1988, he and Brenda had been separated, and he was staying in a quiet place on the seaside. He admits that on the morning of the incident, he had stopped by his girlfriend Diane Alexander’s Los Angeles residence. That’s when Brenda confirmed up.

“When the door opens, Brenda is standing there,” he recounts. What adopted was an enormous, screaming confrontation. Richie writes that he tried to depart, hoping to attract Brenda away, however as soon as he was gone, she returned to renew the argument. Neighbors referred to as the police, and although costs had been in the end dropped, the incident was splashed throughout the information.

Richie displays on the tragedy of the second, stating, “essentially the most painful half… was that Brenda was heartbroken. And I get it.” He describes the ordeal as “uncooked and ugly and disastrous,” noting it was the ultimate straw of their embattled marriage, marking “the saddest day within the lifetime of a wedding” after they each knew, regardless of their historical past, it was lastly over.