Denise Richards and Charlie Sheen decided to end their relationship in 2006, the same year, the former fashion model started dating Richie Sambora. Following in the footsteps of her relationship with the Hot Shots actor, the RHOBH star's relationship with Bon Jovi lead guitarist ended soon.

Richards has opened up about the reason why she and Sambora broke up in her book dubbed, The Real Girl Next Door. Richards says she already knew Sambora, because he was married to her friend Heather Locklear, adding that she and Sheen used to go out to dinner with Sambora and Locklear.

They were going through their divorces at the time when Sambora and Richards bumped into each other in a neighborhood parking lot. The Wild Things actress says they started talking and even exchanged numbers, noting that they clicked instantly due to having similar experiences in their personal lives.

Richards and Sambora served as a support system for one another, and their initial phone conversations led to a date. Richards cared for Sambora deeply, but she says their relationship became challenging due to paparazzi.

Aside from being careful not to be spotted in public together, Denise and Sambora had to come up with code names for each other. "In retrospect, of course, our chance encounter had all the elements of destiny—and disaster," Richards wrote in her book.

Before getting romantically involved, Richards had to decide whether or not to continue talking to Sambora, realizing that their relationship would be a hot topic in the gossip magazines because she would be dating her friend's ex-husband. She was concerned about the unwanted attention and judgment she would be subject to once their relationship goes public.

Richards recalls that her heart encouraged her to see him, while her head told her to run in another direction, but deep down she already knew what she was going to do. The challenge, however, was avoiding paparazzi that followed her every day as soon as she stepped outside her home.

Richards says she and Sambora were both going through difficult times in their lives, with the actress' mother battling kidney cancer and Sambora’s father combating lung cancer. Just two weeks after Richards was informed that her mother's cancer had returned, Sambora learned about his father's diagnosis.

Their relationship began to fall apart after Sambora’s father succumbed to cancer, The stress of her divorce, and Sambora's father's death added too much stress to their relationship. While the guitarist was dealing with a lot of tensions, Richards says her divorce became controversial, Showbiz CheatSheet reported.

In her book, Richards admitted that breaking up with Sambora was particularly hard because he was a dear friend, with whom she had some wonderful times and shared some of her darkest fears. But she had to focus on her divorce, which had become contentious amid a messy custody issue and her career, which was affected by the negative press.