Cirque Du Salahi: Be Careful Who You Trust (6 page)

His life would never be the same.

Tareq Salahi had no idea that he had competition for the lovely Michaele’s attention. A bona fide rock star, no less!

In the fall of 1998 Michaele read about an upcoming Journey concert at Washington, DC’s Constitution Hall. She just knew she and Susan Dove had to be there so she scooped up two tickets.

“We went to reconnect with something we had in our youth,” Michaele said. “To reestablish the bond we had. It was great!”

November 1, 1998 would turn out to be a fateful night. Michaele would get to meet Journey’s lead guitarist Neal Schon, a huge thrill for a long time fan. Michaele says shyness kept her from agreeing to give him her telephone number but he gave her his. Months later, after Michaele says she was convinced that she and Eddie Gallis had no future, she dialed the number Schon had given her.

“I told him I was just calling to say hello. He said, ‘Oh, my God! You finally called! What took you so long!? When can we get together?’”

It was a surreal experience for Michaele to be talking to Schon. She remembers as a young girl hearing her brother Howard’s band play their rendition of her favorite Journey song, “Lovin’, Touchin’, Squeezin’” from Journey’s
Evolution
album. She loved that tune and here she was, years later, talking on the phone to Journey’s guitarist and—
he wanted to get together!

The bottom line to their long distance flirting is, according to Michaele, that she and Neal Schon entered into a long and very passionate relationship that lasted for years. Her job allowed her to make quick two and three day trips to venues where Journey was performing. She says Neal often made his way to the Virginia-Washington, DC area so they could spend private time together. Susan Dove confirms that Schon asked Michaele to move to California at one point but leaving her family, especially her mother, was out of the question. Photographs taken of Michaele and Neal together over the years—some backstage with other Journey band mates, some depicting just the two of them cuddling—reveal a carefree, happy couple of people.

What’s not clear is the exact nature of their relationship.

When contacted via Facebook in mid-July 2010 and asked about it Schon wrote, “Sorry not interested right now … there’s too much controversy with them and don’t think it’s a positive thing for me at this point. Neal.” When pressed further he wrote on July 20, 2010, “We have been friends for years. Neal.” He later suggested that any more questions be directed to his attorney but Schon did not provide a lawyer’s name to contact.

“I never told Neal about my health condition,” Michaele says today. I loved Neal very much but I couldn’t see myself in his lifestyle. I thought, ‘What happens if I’m symptomatic and my stamina, my balance is going or my vision?’ I needed someone who I could rely on no matter what.”

Michaele Ann Holt says she has loved only three men in her life—Eddie Gallis, Neal Schon and Tareq Salahi.

Tareq won.

Two Become One

Their first date was at the exclusive and romantic restaurant at the Inn at Little Washington in rural Washington, Virginia. Tareq was ready to impress his date by guiding her through the establishment’s extensive list of fine wines. Instead he learned that Michaele didn’t drink at all. She never developed a taste for it beyond her youthful partying, and at this point in her life alcohol was completely out of the question. Anyone suffering from multiple sclerosis can confirm that alcohol is never a good idea for someone with a chronic illness that can cause balance problems on a regular basis.

Their second date was an unexpected, whirlwind trip to Paris, France for dinner. For a woman from an ordinary middle-class background, with her relationship experience limited to one broken long-term engagement and a sputtering affair with a rock star, Michaele was overwhelmed by Tareq Salahi’s debonair style and compelling charisma, the way that he focused all of his attention upon her whenever they were together.

“I’d never been to Paris before. And to jet off—just for dinner, wow! I had to get back to work the next day so we flew right back, but it was amazing!”

Tareq made it a habit to move quickly in both business and in his personal life. With Michaele, he wanted nothing more than for her to be his wife. For Christmas of 2000, he gave her his Grandmother’s diamond ring. “She told me to give this to the girl I loved,” he explained to Michaele—but at that moment, he stopped short of an actual marriage proposal.

Less than two months later, in February of 2001, Tareq planned a ten day trip to Rio de Janeiro for himself and his new love. He picked her up at her parents’ house to go to the airport, but announced that they had to make a stop at Oasis Vineyards first.

There, with the help of trusted Oasis employee Donna Johnson, Tareq had arranged for 360 red roses to be placed in a circle of vases on the tasting room floor. He lovingly led Michaele inside the circle, hugged her close and said, “Within this circle of 360 you complete me!” He then bundled her into a horse drawn carriage and took her up to a bluff overlooking the pond and the main house behind and said, “My father gave me this section of land. Someday I will build a house here.” Then he dropped to his knee and said, “I want to build that house with you—as my wife.” To toast their engagement Tareq presented her with an engraved champagne flute which read, “Michaele, will you marry me?”

Michaele pulled him up, jumped into his arms and repeated her answer three times. “Yes. Yes. Yes!” Tareq made her feel like a modern day Cinderella! As the carriage took them back to the main winery building, a small plane flew overhead trailing a banner that read, “Michaele, will you marry me?” Then, they were off to Rio to celebrate their engagement.

It was typical of Tareq not to even consider the fact that this woman might say no and all his planning for the 10 day trip would be for nothing.

Naturally, Michaele told her mother all about the romantic proposal and her new love’s winery, his yacht, and the friendship he had with polo playing buddy Prince Charles. Through Tareq, Michaele had met the Prince in person. But Rosemary Holt warned her daughter that nothing this grand ever lasts. “It can’t be real,” she said over and over. She advised her daughter not to rush into anything, reminding her that she had only just gotten “disengaged” from Eddie. Rosemary was still stung by Michaele’s decision not to wait for him any longer. She longed for her daughter to settle down with the solid, feet-on-the-ground insurance salesman who could provide a life time of reliable health coverage for her ailing daughter.

“Eddie was such a fine young man. I told Missy not to rush into anything,” Mrs. Holt says. “She needed to get well and figure out what she really wanted out of life.” Without saying so, Michaele’s mom made it known that she wasn’t too keen on this flashy new man in her daughter’s life. For that reason it would be nearly three years before there was a wedding.

Michaele’s mother also had no idea about her daughter’s long and passionate relationship with guitarist Neal Schon from the band, Journey. It was one secret she’d always kept from her mother. With the rest of the world, Michaele remained adamant about keeping the secret of her MS (multiple sclerosis). She had gotten over the sense of embarrassment about her illness, but hated the thought of pity from anyone. She wanted to live as normal a life as possible for as long as she could. But in accepting Tareq’s marriage proposal, she knew she would have to tell him all about her health condition. She struggled to figure out just the right time and place. Shortly after their return from their trip to Rio de Janeiro, Michaele took Tareq to the Holt family’s church, St. Marks, in Vienna, Virginia. This place made her feel safe and comfortable and there, Michaele broke down and disclosed to Tareq that she had a disease that would slowly but surely debilitate her.

Michaele recalls her mindset that day, “I figured if he really is the right one, after I tell him, we’d still be engaged.”

“She was crying when she told me,” Tareq said. “I told her I loved her and wanted to marry her—no matter what.” They held each other tightly in that church for a very long time.

Michaele remembers Tareq saying, “‘we will get through it together.’ … and then Tareq said he wished he could have (the disease) instead of me, to take away the pain. He was very loving.”

After the proposal and the health disclosure, Michaele moved to the Oasis property to live with Tareq in the summer of 2001. She bought her fiancé a gift of a Doberman pinscher puppy they named “Rio” to commemorate where they’d celebrated their engagement. The dog’s name was one in a long string of romantic bonds between them. Michaele immediately meshed with Dirgham Salahi, who never met a pretty woman he didn’t like. But there was immediate and ever present tension when Corinne came to the Oasis home from her Montessori school in Alexandria.

Over the years, Corinne’s behavior, as documented in employee affidavits and in police reports, would become increasingly erratic. She once deadbolt-locked Michaele in a room at the winery and held her for three hours before police came to rescue her. Burglaries of some of Michaele’s designer clothes and other items kept at the younger Salahi’s winery apartment were reported to police and Corinne was suspected. A family attorney named David Silek says he saw office videotape of Corinne going after an employee with a hammer and banging it on a closed door. Some of the employees actually called police to come rescue them from the elder Mrs. Salahi when Tareq and Michaele were off the property. Tareq says his mother cruelly removed Michaele’s name from the company health insurance policy knowing full well that she suffered from multiple sclerosis.

“My mother did not like the possibility that there might be another Mrs. Salahi on that property—in that house—and she made our lives a living hell whenever she came home.” Tareq says. Michaele admits she believed at first she could somehow reunite this fractured family and mold it into something like her own loving clan. But Tareq and his half brother barely spoke. Corinne and Tareq bickered constantly and often about the money he accused her of taking from the winery cash register. Dirgham and his wife never seemed to be happy when they occupied the same space for too long.

Still, the young couple flourished at Oasis in many ways. Their relationship got stronger because of all the family strife and together they joined forces to expand the business ever further.

“At first I got a little scared moving out there. I looked around at all the land—beautiful land—but empty land,” Michaele said. “And I realized no shopping, no restaurants, no high fashion anywhere close-by. But I was okay with that.” She smiled and bobbed her head as she delivered the last line as if to say she realized she’d finally found the man she was going to spend the rest of her life with.