Breaking their silence about their scandalous romance, Michaele Salahi and Journey guitarist Neal Schon sat down with The Daily Beast to reveal the details of their highly publicized affair.
"It's like a fairy tale. It is, it really is," the rocker explained, "I'm very happy, very happy after waiting for her for 15 years. Now I want to get beyond all this media hype that Tareq has put out there. It's really quite embarrassing."
Echoing her now-beau's thoughts, the Bravo star revealed that the two had dated back in the '90s, but that she had chose to stay with her current husband because she believed he could take care of her better.
"I chose Tareq over Neal because I thought life would be less stressful living on a vineyard in Virginia. Life on the road with a rock band...well, I thought I might not have been able to keep up," she told.
The new couple admit that they had been communicating via text before Schon invited the Salahis to Journey's September 4th show in Virginia - and also confessed that it was that night that made Michaele realize she must leave her husband.
"I began to see he really loved me. I had to begin to feel it completely in my soul, " the former White House crasher explained.
Neal says it was that same evening that Michaele finally vocalized her feelings, telling, "What happened was...she takes off her wedding ring...right in front of Tareq. Takes it off. And then she proceeds to come into my dressing room where I'm sitting down. I have tennis shoes on and she's like, nine feet tall over me. And she looks down at me like she's standing on stilts and says 'I love you, and that's never gonna change.' And when that happened I said, 'Get over here! This has taken 15 years!"
While Schon asked her to board his tour bus with him after the show, Michaele declined for fear of humiliating her family - however, just 10 days later she changed her mind.
"I didn't want to hurt anyone, but I realized I was hurting myself," Mrs. Salahi claimed, adding, "I was going crazy. Because when you want to be with someone that bad, you start to go crazy. He [Neal] sent someone to come get me. I got on a plane by myself and I just went. I just walked away from everything."
Since packing up her belongings, Michaele's husband Tareq has filed for divorce and has claimed that Schon sent a text of his privates as a way to further torment him.
Photo Credit: Getty Images
