SamboraBlog

The Bon Jovi guitarist split from wife Heather Locklear, hooked up and then broke up with Locklear's former friend Denise Richards, lost his father to lung cancer, and checked into rehab.

"Last year was a little tough for me," Sambora told Sun Media in an Canadian newspaper exclusive.

"I had a little bit of a tough year. My dad passed away and going through a divorce, and child settlements and custody and blah, blah, blah and all the stuff that I went through -- that was kind of tough."

Sambora said the tabloid coverage of his personal life wasn't great but he has been through it before and tries to roll with it.

"The tabloid thing -- that's just the infatuation with celebrity -- at this point is at an all-time high," he said. "Because when it gets thrown in your face, you want to know about it, I think. It's like, 'Okay, they get hooked.' They pick up one of those magazines or look at one of those TV magazine shows, and it becomes a part of their lives for some people.

"And people want to know what's happening to Richie Sambora next week now. It's like an on-going soap opera that I live. Half of it's baloney anyway.

"A lot of young musicians, or young celebrities, will come up and talk to me, 'How did I handle it?' I lived with Cher back in 1988 when I was only a kid. It was just as bad then if not worse. I've been through it many, many times and it's something that you've just got to take with a grain of salt and laugh it off, man, walk it off. It's just a part of the fame game at this point. It's an unfortunate thing."