Jon was getting bad press long before the song. And it's very likely that he will continue to get bad press.

The "you" in the song is about a woman, as I said 20 pages back. The intentional "leak", Richie's tweet about the lyrics being timely and Borg making sure the tabloids picked it up were all orchestrated to get more youtube hits on the song.

I guess it's fair play since in the beginning of this mess all Jon kept telling the media is richie's been through this before, implying he left the tour because of his addiction, so now richie leaks a throw away song and gets people to think is was about Jon. There are obvious intentions behind both.

But really, if none of this was going on between him and Jon the song probably wouldn't have seen the light of day. And if it did, no one would care about it. It's only getting "traction" because they won't tell us why the hell richie isn't on tour.

Richie is getting favourable media coverage through all this. Most of the negativity from the press is toward Jon (perhaps correctly), which suggests Richie's new A-Team is doing ok. However, they are still not figuring that any future career he has will not be determined by the average reader of TMZ or the Daily Fail. Instead it will be the fans he already has and for the most part they are pretty pissed at him.

It isn't the media he needs to whore out too, Bon Jovi never was the media darling, so why is Richie pursuing the media so much now? It must be bad advice coming from somewhere. Next stop is Richie wearing a sandwich board in Time Square with Nikki/Rich on the front and please buy my album on the back.

By this point we have no idea who is to blame other than Richie bailed on the tour. So as we are getting nothing new I prefer the silence from the band over Richie's frankly tacky displays.

That's pretty much the situation, you summed it up perfectly.

Oh, and for the millionth time... Jon didn't say Richie's been through it before, he said the band's been through it before, meaning they had toured without Richie before. And Jon also denied it was about alcohol in one interview when they asked him directly.

But Jon only denied that once the press ran with that story and only after he was directly asked.
They both know what they're doing. They both know how to manipulate the media to their advantage. However, I think there must be a good reason Jon is getting the bad press. In the beginning it was Richie with the "hard partying" rumors from alleged sources close to Jon, but the tide turned since the TMZ story.

It's the silence from the band that turned this into the mess that it is. If this is all Richie's fault, then why not come out and say that to stop the bad press? Clearly, it isn't all his fault. Richie reacted to something. Whatever it was can't be good. There is a reason Jon is staying silent.

Agreed. If Jon truly made that comment about his daughter and Richie's family it put Richie in a lose lose. If he got pissed enough to walk he can't tell the press what Jon said because a backlash like that during a tour would be nuts, so he has to stay silent. Who knows if that's what it is though.

My point is I don't care who is to blame, and at this point we are not finding out either way. Richie is not addressing this issue really, he is sending a bunch of bizarre Tweets. The point I was making is if we will never find out I would rather have the band behaving as it always has than Richie becoming a media whore.

And re the reason Jon is staying silent. Richie is too, so perhaps he is to blame? Jon is actually doing all he has ever done. When has he ever come out openly saying things that go on within in the band. I honestly mean it when I say I don't care who is to blame, I am 29 years old, and it should be obvious to everyone that probably both are to blame.

I agree Jon stays mostly silent because well, that's what he does. And maybe he's trying to take the higher road. Plus he isn't attached at the hip to a blonde publicity hound. :) And would someone please explain to Richie what a damn spellchecker is?

The tiny little difference is the people writing about Richie are best buddies with him, so there's no room for misunderstandings to begin with. I appreciate him saying the song has nothing to do with Jon, although to be fair I've never thought it was, I just think it came out now and not, say, two years ago for a reason. Why? Again, because Richie has lunch every other day with this Borg guy who happens to be both his personal PR and NikkiRich's, and also the one who runs to all of the major (and minor) news/gossip outlets with the same old article featuring the same old big title trying to sell us the rumor that "Richie slams Jon in new solo song", giving us part of the lyrics and pretending to be factual by saying: "judge for yourselves". It just doesn't add up, that's the whole point here.