Bon Jovi band members share insights into Richie Sambora’s 2013 ‘Heartbreak’ departure in new documentary

‘Thank You, Goodnight: The Bon Jovi Story’ is now streaming on Hulu

(L-R) Richie Sambora, Jon Bon Jovi, Alec John Such, Tico Torres, David Bryan ca. 1986. PHOTO: LESTER COHEN/GETTY

Richie Sambora’s abrupt exit from Bon Jovi sent shockwaves through the music world in 2013 — and now, more than a decade later, he and his former bandmates are opening up about the fateful moment like never before.

The iconic band’s ups and downs are chronicled in the new Hulu series Thank You, Goodnight: The Bon Jovi Story (now streaming), which features interviews with Sambora, frontman Jon Bon Jovi, keyboardist David Bryan, drummer Tico Torres and bassist Hugh McDonald.

Over several episodes, the rockers unpack their three decades together — and detail the turmoil within that eventually led to Sambora being a no-show at a concert date. The rocker never rejoined the band, and has said he left to focus on raising his daughter Ava amid his divorce from Heather Locklear.

In the series, Bon Jovi, 62, explains that tension began to build around the time the group released the 2009 album The Circle, as the breakneck pace at which they were working became difficult.

“I was enjoying it, and I thought everybody else was enjoying it,” he says. “[But] I think that’s when Richie’s challenges were starting to challenge him. He was struggling.”

Hugh McDonald, Alec John Such, David Bryan, John Bon Jovi, Tico Torres and Richie Sambora of Bon Jovi attend the 33rd Annual Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony in April 2018 in Cleveland, Ohio.THEO WARGO/GETTY

Torres, 70, says he sensed that Sambora, 64, was struggling, and made a point to try to get him help, as he considered him a “brother.” Bon Jovi, meanwhile, admits that perhaps he should have hit the brakes on the band’s “exhausting” go-go-go attitude at the time.

Regardless, Sambora says his breaking point was “an amalgamation of things” that included the grueling tour schedule, but also issues in his personal life involving ex-wife Locklear and their daughter Ava, now 26.

“She needed me, and I needed her,” he says of Ava. “Truthfully. We didn’t have enough time. Things gang up on you, and I was dealing with that, as well as being a part of one of the biggest bands in the world. The band was stale at that point, and my job was to say that.”

For the guitarist, relations within the band had turned “sour,” and things reached a head when he didn’t show to a recording session. In the docuseries, Bon Jovi says Sambora was “really upset” that someone else played a certain acoustic guitar part while recording the song “The Fighter,” and it “caused a problem.”

Richie Sambora and Jon Bon Jovi.KE.MAZUR/WIREIMAGE

“I didn’t know… that Richie was crushed that he was replaced,” Bon Jovi says. “He had some issues falling off the wagon during the course of pre-production.”

Sambora, for his part, was frustrated as he felt the band was sending him a message: “I can do it without you.”

“There was a lot of tension,” he says. “Not only with me but the guys in the band. I really thought to myself, ‘They’d be better off without me.’”

By 2013, the group was 20 shows in to a big tour when Sambora called and asked if he could stay home another day, then fly on a private plane to join the group the next day. He never showed for the flight.

“Richie wouldn’t leave his own house to show up for the show,” Torres says. “That hurt. That was like the first time that you’re like, ‘Ugh, I don’t know if there’s gonna be a happy ending.’”

Richie Sambora and Jon Bon Jovi performing in June 1995.DAVE HOGAN/GETTY

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McDonald says in the series that he was “sadder” than he was “pissed off” by Sambora’s exit, and Bon Jovi says his failure to show put the group at a crossroads — either they cancel their concert and disappoint thousands of people, or they play on.

“We were quite angry and disappointed and shocked,” Bon Jovi recalls. “We didn’t know if Richie was going to be gone for a show, a week, a leg… at the time, you didn’t want to believe that you wouldn’t see him on that stage again.”

Torres calls Sambora’s departure and the band’s decision to keep going a “pivotal point” in Bon Jovi, one that was “difficult” because “you love [him] and it hurts.”

“We go, ‘I don’t want to walk away.’ Tico didn’t want to walk away, Jon doesn’t want to walk away. We want to be here,” says Bryan. “And it really blows that we didn’t have the guys we started out the journey with. That’s heartbreaking.”

Sambora says that he doesn’t “regret leaving the situation,” but regrets how he did it.

Richie Sambora and Jon Bon Jovi performing in Cleveland in April 2018.KEVIN MAZUR/GETTY

“I want to apologize fully right now to the fans, especially, and also to the guys because my feet and my spirit were just not letting me walk out the door,” he says. “Jon and I touched the planet with those songs. You realize that you were warriors that love each other, watched each other’s back, told each other the truth. If anybody doesn’t think we were Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid or Jimmy [Page] and Robert [Plant, of Led Zeppelin], anyway you want to slice it… Come on.”

In this week’s issue of PEOPLE, Bon Jovi says that he and Sambora watched part of the docuseries together at Bon Jovi’s house, noting that there’s “never animosity” between the childhood friends.

“There was nothing but love,” he says. “There was never a fight. Ultimately being in a rock band is not a life sentence. He had to deal with his other issues.”

Still, a source told PEOPLE that Sambora and Bon Jovi only watched three episodes of the series together before Sambora left, as he “was sick and tired of what he was seeing.”

“He didn’t like the way he was being cast,” the source said. “He disagrees with how they framed his departure from the band and to him, the currency of happiness is more important than the currency of money.”

Sambora reunited with the rest of the band in 2018, when they performed together during their Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony in Cleveland, Ohio. The band is set to release its 16th studio album Forever on June 7.

For more on Jon Bon Jovi, pick up the new issue of PEOPLE, available on newsstands everywhere now.