Neal Schon and Michaele Salahi (
)
TRIANGLE: Reality star Michaele Salahi says she chose Tareq Salahi (above, center ) over rocker Neal Shon (above, left) years ago because she thought her life would be easier with Salahi. (TMZ.com / Splash News)
She’s lovin’, touchin’, squeezin’ another — and has been waiting 15 years to do it!
Former “Real Housewives of DC” cast member Michaele Salahi broke her silence yesterday, explaining why she dumped her husband, Tareq Salahi, for Journey guitarist Neal Schon.
Their love, she said, boiled over backstage after a Journey concert on Sept. 4. — after being “just friends” since the 1990s.
“Neal was like, ‘Are we going to do this forever?’ And I said, ‘No, we’re not,’ ” Michaele Salahi told The Daily Beast.
“I began to see he really loved me. I had to begin to feel it completely — in my soul.”
Schon said their illicit relationship took a serious turn when Michaele ripped off her wedding ring while they were briefly alone in his dressing room and told him, “ ‘I love you. And that’s never gonna change.’ And when that happened I said, ‘Get over here! This has taken 15 years!’ ”
The wayward blonde had dated both men about 20 years ago, but Michaele opted for a cushy life with millionaire Tareq, she said.
“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.”
While Tareq has filed for divorce — and claimed Schon taunted him by sending a photo of his penis — the rocker is over the moon.
“It’s like a fairy tale. It is, it really is,” the giddy guitarist said told the Web site. “I’m very happy, very happy after waiting for her for 15 years.”
Schon said he wanted Michaele, who first gained infamy in 2009 when she and Tareq were accused of crashing a White House party, to get on the tour bus with him Sept. 4. But she declined.
“I was pretty close to doing it,” noted Michaele, adding, “but then I thought, No, that’s not who I am. That would be public humiliation for Tareq.”
She said she assured Schon, “We will be together. I promise.”
Tareq was humiliated anyway.
He called the cops — and the media — to report that he believed she had been kidnapped, or worse. But Michaele said she knew her marriage was over.
“I didn’t want to hurt anyone, but I realized I was hurting myself,” she told the site.
Then last Tuesday, as Tareq went to his vineyard, Schon reached out to Michaele and said, “I don’t want to wait anymore,” and arranged for her to meet up with him on tour.
“I was going crazy, because when you want to be with someone that bad, you start to go crazy,” she said. “I got on a plane by myself and I just went.”