Jon Bon Jovi has opened up about his struggle with a damaged vocal cord and the long recovery process that followed surgery to fix it, speaking with People. The singer explained why he chose not to tour for years after undergoing vocal cord medialization.
Bon Jovi said the recovery took four years and was far more difficult than he had expected. During this time, he could not perform at the level he wanted and turned down multiple tour offers, even as promoters prepared dates and fans waited for him to return.
“I didn’t lose faith, but had [my doctor] told me it was going to be four years, I might’ve contemplated saying, ‘It’s been great’ [and leaving his office],” Bon Jovi said. “Because the process was so damn long and I would see the progress, but it was incremental. It was inches. I couldn’t sing ‘Happy Birthday.'”
He continued, “I’ve gone through hell and I would not, could not, compromise the legacy. I could not, would not go out and hold the mic out to the crowd. Holding ourselves to a standard that we’ve had for some 40 x years now, it’s important to me to be the best we can be.”
Bon Jovi explained his decision to wait before returning to performing. “I realized that it took four years. That four years was my doing. I don’t go out [on tour] after the two years. People were saying, ‘It’s fine, let’s go.’ Ask the promoter Paul Dainty how many times he’s had on a piece of paper a tour booked and I’ve said, ‘No, can’t do it. Just don’t do it.’ And after the four-year process I was like, ‘Yeah, it’s ready.'”
During the years before his full recovery, performing had become a constant mental battle. “I can actually sing without thinking about singing. In 2019 and 2022 for sure, every note I was white-knuckling that microphone. ‘Is that in tune? Is that in tune? Is that good enough? Is that enough?’ That was real every night. It was not worth doing.”
Once he returned to the stage, the change was immediate. “So when I walked off that stage in Nashville and I said to [wife] Dorothea, ‘That was pretty good!’ I believed it. I was like, ‘That’s pretty good.’ She goes, ‘No. It wasn’t.'”
By the end of his performances at Wembley Stadium, Bon Jovi had achieved what he had been working toward. “The beautiful thing that I aspired to for these years was, I have 18 albums. I want to be able to pick any song from any record and know that I can do them. And that’s what was happening by the end of Wembley [Stadium]… We’re playing all the hits but I can give them all the album tracks that people love.”
These remarks came as Bon Jovi discussed the vocal cord medialization procedure he had undergone to treat his damaged cord.
Bon Jovi first noticed his vocal problems in 2013, but they worsened significantly after the pandemic break. Increasing breathiness, diminished volume and moments of uncertain pitch made singing increasingly difficult, and when he returned to performing after the pandemic, his voice had deteriorated further. He took advice from Shania Twain, whom he calls his “spirit sister,” and underwent the same vocal cord surgery she had done in 2018.
The procedure Bon Jovi underwent was a medialization thyroplasty surgery, a cutting-edge procedure in which an implant was placed on the outside of his vocal cord to rebuild the weakened cord. Following the operation, he embarked on a lengthy recovery process that included months of rehabilitation, vocal exercises and rebuilding his stamina. Surgery alone was not enough to restore his voice to its former power and precision.
Promoters presented Bon Jovi with possible tours during his recovery, but he repeatedly turned them down because he did not want to rely on audiences to sing parts that he could no longer comfortably perform himself. His return to the stage in 2024 included sold-out shows across two continents, with 9 Madison Square Garden shows, 3 Wembley Stadium shows, plus performances in Edinburgh and Dublin. At his three sold-out shows at Wembley Stadium, his band opened with a powerful cover of Lennon and McCartney’s “With a Little Help From My Friends” in acknowledgement of the fans who stood loyally behind him while he recovered.
