Just think, Tammi Baliszewski could have been a Real Housewife of Beverly Hills.
But, she says, Kelsey Grammer dumped her for his eventual third wife, Camille Grammer, sending Baliszewski down a road of self-discovery that culminated in her new book, Manifesting Love From the Inside Out.
A copy of which she has since sent to Camille to help her through her increasingly messy divorce from the Frasier star, Baliszewski tells E! News in an exclusive interview airing tonight at 7 p.m. and 11:30 p.m.
"When I was hurting to that degree," she says, "I thought, 'There is nothing I can do to make myself feel better.' I called my therapist, my priest, my friends, and really no one wanted to speak with me. I felt very, very, very alone, like I was brought to my knees and had some serious heart-to-heart conversations with God."
Baliszewski, who says she went back to school and obtained a PhD after her breakup with Grammer, describes her first meeting with the actor—who, to this day, she calls "extraordinarily intelligent," "complex" and "charismatic."
He was going through a "challenging divorce" from wife No. 2 at the time, Baliszewski says, but he called her the morning after their first introduction.
They had dinner that night, then he was MIA for about three weeks, she says, after which, "he eventually resurfaced...and then we saw each other very consistently after that and got engaged shortly thereafter."
"We were in the back of the limo and he said he was looking for a diamond for me and I was shocked," she tells E! News. "I mean, we'd only been seeing each other for three months, so it wasn't very long. And he said he couldn't afford it yet...About 10 minutes later, he got down on his knee in the limo and proposed to me."
"About a month later," Baliszewski says, "he proposed again in front of the studio audience. I think it was the last taping of Frasier."
A People magazine cover in 1994 touted Kelsey as being "happy at last" with a hit show and a new love, meaning Baliszewski.
"I just have a lot of compassion for this girl," Baliszewski says, referring to herself (not Camille). "She had no idea what was coming down the pike. The first year was really wonderful, there was traveling, it was like a dream come true. And the second year was more challenging. The third year was very, very difficult."
Kelsey was arrested in 1988 for DUI and then again for cocaine possession in 1990. He spent 10 days in jail and was placed on probation. In 1996, the actor flipped his Dodge Viper and soon after checked into the Betty Ford Center for alcohol and substance-abuse treatment.
Baliszewski claims that Kelsey's addictions played a big role in their relationship, saying that the "strangeness of some of that time together make more sense" when she thinks about what he was going through.
"I was pouring alcohol down the sink and replenishing the bottles with water. I was doing my best to hold him together," she says.
She says that he got angry at her when she asked whether he had been drinking at the time of his car wreck. But before that, Baliszewski adds, some of his colleagues at NBC had held an intervention for him—and Camille was there, as well.
In fact, she claims that Kelsey was even seeing Camille before they broke up. Fittingly, Grammer also announced his engagement to Kayte Walsh barely six months after Camille filed for divorce.
"He was at the hospital and I said should I come see you," Baliszewski recalls, "and he said, 'No! No, don't come, don't come.' And it was confusing for me but it was because he was also involved with Camille and didn't want that in the press.
"So, yeah, I don't think I ever saw him after that."
So now, she really feels for Camille.
Baliszewski says she met Grammer's third wife after an ex-boyfriend put them in touch.
"I got her email [address] and sent her a short note, and she responded a couple of days later. [We] had a very heartfelt conversation," Baliszewski says. "We've spoken five or six times since then, and I like her very much, I think she's a really sweet soul. Funny, a little self-deprecating. It's like she could be a sister of mine."
Baliszewski explains why she sent Camille a copy of her book, Manifesting Love.
"What I do believe I have in common with her and I do understand is, again, that confusion and emotional devastation and that anguish...because I've gone through it. I have a very deep level of compassion for her."
"I would do anything in the world to support her if she needed me," Baliszewski adds. "I've sent her a book, I call her once in a while just to let her know she's in my heart and my thoughts and my prayers and that I have great respect and compassion for her."