Tawny Kitaen: Who she is today

In a phone interview, Finley says that his ex-wife has moved forward with her life and has become a wonderful mother.

"Tawny has had an amazing journey since the first time I met her," Finley says. "And though there have been bumps in the road, which we all experience, I could not be more proud of where and who she is today.

"I witness daily what a tremendous mother she is to our daughters. I know how she embraces each and every day with optimism. She's at a point where she has found balance in her life, and has been for years really. We talk almost every day about the girls, about what each of us are doing, and how she is looking forward with enthusiasm, to whatever tomorrow might bring, both personally and professionally."

Kitaen denies what is perhaps the best-known element of what happened that night: that she hit Finley with a shoe.

"I don't know where this shoe came from," she says.

After a verbal argument in a Land Rover, Kitaen says she asked Finley to stop the car and admits that she did pull his ear. As for the arrest, Kitaen says that she is the one who called 911, an act she now regrets.

"The cops came. I looked at Chuck, and I looked at the police, and I thought, 'Oh my God, our lives are going to completely change right here,'" she says. "I will never call 911 again."

The incident played out the most publicly right where she lived, in Newport Beach.

"I felt like a leper in this city," she recalls. "It was just a horrible, horrible time for me. I didn't want to leave my house."

However, when she did step out, Kitaen was surprised by the reaction.

"I got hungry and I said, 'I have to go to the grocery store.' I left and people were very nice to me," she says. "It was surprising."

Nowadays, Kitaen says, her relationship with Newport Beach residents couldn't be better.

"I love it down here because people really leave you alone," she says. "I have great neighbors."

Now tanned with a new blond 'do, the 49-year-old mother of two looks transformed from her 2002 mug shot.

"So much has changed and happened since then," she says.

Family photos cover the mantle of Finley's home, where she is staying. Kitaen points to one in particular.

"That's from my birthday," she says. "We all hang out as a family."