Jon Bon Jovi, 62, reveals he is ‘getting back’ to performing live and taking recovery ‘step by step’ following rare throat surgery two years earlier

Jon Bon Jovi revealed that he is slowly returning to live performance after undergoing a rare throat surgery two years earlier in June 2022.

The Livin’ On A Prayer hitmaker, 62 – who recently attended Tom Brady’s induction into the Patriots Hall of Fame with his wife Dorothea Hurley – opened up about his health update during an interview with People.

During the opening of an exhibition at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame for his band, Bon Jovi, the rocker was asked if he has regained his singing following the release of the group’s latest album, Forever, which dropped on June 7 .

“I think so,” Jon told the outlet. Regarding getting back on stage to perform in front of a live audience, he added, “We performed in Nashville last night and everything was really good.”

“So step by step I’m going to get back to it,” the Grammy winner continued.

In the summer of 2022, Bon Jovi had a vocal fold medialization procedure (also called thyroplasty) performed.

And last month in May, the artist got candid about the voting surgery during a cover story for AARP’s June/July 2024 issue.

While speaking with the outlet, the singer shared his initial reaction to possibly suffering from voice loss.

‘People had to talk me off the edge because you were like, “I didn’t do anything wrong! What’s going on?,” he said.

Lip-syncing and Auto-tune weren’t an option for Jovi when it came to live performances, with the star saying: “I’d rather be hit by a bus on the highway.”

Jon was considering different options when fellow artist Shania Twain recommended her doctor, Robert Sataloff, after experiencing voice problems herself.

Sataloff also told AARP, “Jon has worked harder and more diligently throughout his career than most of his fans could have ever imagined.”

However, he explained that the star’s thinning vocal cords were not caused by injury or any disease, but simply by aging. “It catches up with all of us eventually.”

Regarding the vocal cords that have lost mass over the years, the doctor said, “the vocal folds don’t fit together properly.”

‘People naturally and unconsciously work harder to squeeze their vocal folds to give them a powerful voice. But that kind of excessive muscle tension is counterproductive and inefficient.”

Sataloff added, “It causes muscle tension that makes it more difficult to talk or sing, and leads to vocal fatigue and sometimes vocal cord injury.”

And in June 2022, Jon underwent surgery and received a Gore-Tex implant in an attempt to strengthen his vocal cords.

“The day after the operation I could talk,” the singer recalls. ‘I just sounded like the Godfather. It takes some retraining of the mind, the body and then the spirit, and you just have to be patient.”

“I didn’t excel in the patience category,” the stat admitted to the publication. ‘I’m not Superman. It’s just a tattoo I have on my arm.

“Part of the human experiment is you just have to try to stay focused and keep moving forward. But that doesn’t mean life is over just because I’m 62.”

He later explained, “It’s like an athlete getting back on the field. Until you are there during the game, you never know if it will hold up.”

Jon also revealed if there was a possibility of touring again, saying: “Whether I can ever do another 100-show tour, I don’t know. But if I can experience joy on stage on the first night, that would be great.”

To make this goal possible, the rocker has focused on a strict recovery process, from a fitness routine at the gym targeting his core and back, to working with speech therapists to retrain his vocal muscles.

“There’s no doubt in my mind that I can’t sing anymore,” he said during his interview with AARP. “This is not a situation where the singer has lost his voice.”

“But during this recovery, my goal is to work two and a half hours every night, four days a week,” Jon explained, referring to how often he plans to take the stage on tour. “And you know what, I’m not going to go out there and give anything less than 110 percent.”

In April, Jon’s vocal cord problems were featured in the Hulu docuseries titled Thank You, Goodnight: The Bon Jovi Story.

While you’re talking to People The singer reflected further on the procedure at the time, saying, “The thing that gave me so much pleasure was taken away.”

“Joy is something you have to work at, right? Happiness is what you make of it. It’s no longer about seizing the day.’

He added: “I think it’s about embracing the day. I don’t have to punch him in the face anymore, now I just give him a hug, and that’s a good place to be.”

Regarding the band’s new album, Forever, the star explained that the theme is “really about finding joy again.”

‘What really matters in life? It’s love and loyalty and finding things that make you want to get out of bed in the morning.”

In addition to slowly returning to live performances and dropping new music, Jon also recently celebrated his son, Jake Bongiovi, who secretly tied the knot with Stanger Things actress Millie Bobby Brown last month in May.

During a recent interview with BBC’s The One Show, Jon talked about the intimate wedding and his daughter-in-law.

“It was a very small family wedding and the bride looked beautiful and Jake is as happy as can be,” he said.

The singer also said, “Millie is wiser than her years, wiser than I was at her age. She and Jake figure things out together. You talk to them and they say, “We’re developing this [ideas for] movies together” and I’m amazed.”

Bon Jovi shares Jake, 22, as well as Stephanie, 31, Jessie, 29, and Romeo, 20, with wife Dorothea Hurley – who he tied the knot with in 1989.