‘80s Rocker Shares Devastating Detail of His 4-Year Health Struggle
The Grammy-winning icon opened up about his career-threatening problems.
Frank Micelotta/Frank Micelotta/Getty Images
Grammy-winning rocker Jon Bon Jovi is opening up about the health issue that kept him from performing for nearly four years.
During an Oct. 20 episode of the Australian broadcast A Current Affair, the 64-year-old singer revealed that his vocal cord atrophy got so severe that he struggled to get out “Happy Birthday.”
Jon Bon Joni performs live in Atlanta, Georgia, on April 15, 2010.
David Bergman/www.DavidBergman.net/Hulu
Vocal cord atrophy, or presbylaryngis, is a common medical condition in people over the age of 60 in which vocal cords lose volume and inward curvature, leading to vocal fatigue, according to Johns Hopkins Medicine
Jon Bon Jovi poses during a portrait session on May 26, 1987, before performing with his band in Detroit, Michigan.
Icon and Image/Ross Marino/Getty Images
The Livin’ On A Prayer singer, who underwent vocal cord surgery in 2022, said on the broadcast that he might have called it quits if he had known how long his recovery was going to take.
“The process was so damn long, and I would see the progress, but it was incremental,” the namesake of the band Bon Jovi said. “It was inches. I couldn’t sing ‘Happy Birthday.’”
Rock icon Jon Bon Jovi spoke about his recovery from vocal cord surgery during an Oct. 20 episode of the Australian broadcast "A Current Affair."
A Current Affair/YouTube
Although several people encouraged him to go on tour after two years of recovery, the founder and frontman of the rock band Bon Jovi said he believes the four-year process was crucial to feeling his best.
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“I’ve gone through hell, and I would not, could not compromise the legacy,” he said. “Holding ourselves to a standard that we’ve had for some 40X years now, it’s important to me to be the best that we can be.”
The Always singer admitted he questioned every note he sang on tour in 2019 and 2022, but when he walked off the stage of his last major concert in Nashville, Tennessee, in 2022, his wife, Dorothea, 64, bluntly told him his performance wasn’t good.
Jon Bon Jovi and his family attend the 33rd Annual Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony at Public Auditorium on April 14, 2018, in Cleveland, Ohio.
Kevin Mazur/Kevin Mazur/Getty Images For The Rock and Ro
Bon Jovi and his wife of 37 years are high school sweethearts and have four children: Stephanie, 33; Jesse James, 31; Jacob “Jake,” 24; and Romeo, 22.
Jon Bon Jovi attends the "Thank You, Goodnight: The Bon Jovi Story" U.K. Premiere on April 17, 2024, in London, England.
Karwai Tang/Karwai Tang/WireImage
Now, the rocker—who returned to the stage in July and on Oct. 19 announced seven new dates on the band’s Forever Tour—said being back on the road feels “phenomenal.”
“I can actually sing without thinking about singing,” he said.
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