The Mirror talks to Jon Bon Jovi at Wembley Stadium as the band prepare to play an epic show there next year – as he opens up about being a grandad, his bond with Robbie Williams and life on the road
Singer Jon Bon Jovi can’t stop smiling when he talks about being a grandfather. The rock legend may have sold more than 130 million records and stood on some of the biggest stages in the world. But nothing, it seems, compares to the moment his children started having children of their own.
“It’s fantastic being a grandad… it’s another chapter,” he says. “In fact, my son Jesse and his wife are expecting in the next week, so I’ll have two. If we got the phone call today, Dorothea’s on the next plane home. It’s literally any day now. We’re so excited as we’ll have two of them for the holidays. It’ll be a unique Christmas in the house.”
For the Livin’ On A Prayer singer, 63, family life has always come first. Jon and wife Dorothea Hurley, his high-school sweetheart, married quietly in Las Vegas back in 1989 and have raised four children – Stephanie, 32, Jesse, 20, Jake, 23, and Romeo, 21. That close-knit family has now grown again: Jake and his wife Millie Bobby Brown recently adopted a baby girl, making Jon a grandad for the first time.
READ MORE: Jon Bon Jovi’s hidden pain as he confides in pop star to help him return to stage
“I’ve just kind of got used to dealing with my kids being grown,” he laughs. “I still see them as two and three, and then they’re in their thirties and bring a baby around and you’re like, wow, that’s a reinvention. When Dorothea gets the call, there’ll be gravel in my eyes. It’s sort of the magic of life.”
That sense of perspective colours everything Jon says these days. Sitting inside Wembley Stadium, where he’ll return to perform in 2026, the star is open about how hard the last few years have been. He spent more than three years recovering from vocal-cord surgery that threatened to end his career altogether. The ordeal left him shattered,
“It was daunting,” he admits. “My livelihood was being taken away, and I didn’t mind if I never saw a stadium full of people again. But I didn’t want to lose my instrument. That was the sad part. It wasn’t the sound of the applause, I wouldn’t miss that.” But the comeback is now well and truly on.
The newly announced Forever tour will see him play Edinburgh’s Murrayfield on August 28, Dublin’s Croke Park on August 30, and wrapping up with one night at Wembley Stadium in London on September 4. Sitting in a private box with Jon as we overlook the famous Wembley turf, the star seems galvanised by the prospect of getting out there on the road again.
“I wouldn’t be here talking to you if I didn’t feel 100 percent,” he insists. “I would have pulled the plug last week if I wasn’t up to it. There’s just zero chance of that happening. I feel great.” This week he also released the band’s latest studio album, Forever (Legendary Edition) – a reimagined take of their songs from their 2024 album Forever with the likes of Bruce Springsteen, Avril Lavigne and our own Robbie Williams featuring on the tracklist.
“Robbie was the first one I asked, and he said yes, which gave me the strength to ask the second, third, fifth, and tenth,” he says. I admit I hadn’t realised the two of them were acquaintances but Jon surprises me when he speaks of his admiration for the former Take That star.
In fact, he sees a lot of himself in Robbie in the way both men have endured their own mental health struggles. Jon suffered a serious bout of depression in 2013, as well as periods during the 1990s.
“It makes it easier for the average guy, or someone who’s not as popular or famous, to know that Robbie went through it, I went through it, Bruce (Springsteen) is going through these things. It helps anyone watching to see that we all face real-life situations.” Fellow New Jersey star Bruce, who opened up this week about suffering depression, features on the band’s song Hollow Man.
“Bruce had really taken a liking to that song when it was just a demo. He called me back the next day, and said he would love to do it,” he says. The bond between the two men is clearly strong. He says he recently went with Bruce to watch Deliver Me From Nowhere, a biopic of his life featuring Jeremy Allen White in the title role.
“It was like being in a time machine,” Jon says. “In the film, Bruce goes to the Stone Pony club on Sundays and he plays with this cover band. Two blocks over, on the same night, I used to play in a bar called The Fast Lane.
“And my audiences dwindled every Sunday to the point where we go on at 7.30pm knowing that we’re closing our bar by 9.30pm to all go to the Stone Pony because by midnight, he was going to show up and perform with this cover band.” The film also features the studio where Jon used to be a “gopher”, but also where he recorded Runaway which transformed his life. “It was very surreal,” he smiles.
Jon’s history with Wembley goes back decades. He played the final concerts at the old stadium before its demolition and helped open the O2. “We closed the old one, meant to open the new one,” he says. “We stood outside with the arch, took the photographs, but the inside wasn’t finished. They had to move 130,000 people up to Milton Keynes because the building wasn’t ready. We were the guys that opened The O2. And here we are again – it’s a nice bit of folklore.”
As for how long this new tour could go on, Jon remains non-committal. “Honestly, I’d like to just get my feet wet,” he says of the live return. “For me, it’s one thing at a time: gratitude, joy, health…that’s it.”
Bon Jovi’s new album Forever (Legendary Edition) is available now, and their Forever Tour heads to Edinburgh’s Murrayfield (28 Aug), Dublin’s Croke Park (30 Aug) and London’s Wembley Stadium (4 Sept). Tickets go on general sale Friday 31 October: www.bonjovi.com
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: mirror.co.uk
