Sunday Mail interview with Jon
CELEBRITY: BEING A PIN-UP IS FUN... BUT I SLEPT ALONE LAST NIGHT Apr 27 2003
Jon Bon Jovi tells why stardom is no big deal
Billy Sloan In Seattle Exclusive
SITTING in a suite of the iplush Four Seasons Hotel iin downtown Seattle, I'm about to become the envy of millions of love-struck women.
The door opens and Jon Bon Jovi strolls in and shakes my hand.
The previous night, he'd wowed 20,000 fans in the Key Arena... most of them adoring females.
But the 40-year-old singer - who has been happily married to his high school sweetheart Dorothea for 13 years - still can't take his sex symbol image seriously.
Jon said: "Being a pin-up is fun and goofy... but it's not all it's cracked up to be, believe me. I slept alone last night.
"I'm sitting here with a baseball cap and sunglasses on. I need a shave and a shower. There's nothing sexy about this."
Warming to the topic, he added: "When I made the cover of Rolling Stone magazine for the first time, all the female journalist wanted to talk about was my haircut and my looks. It was heartbreaking because my music was ignored. Now, I don't take offence at it.
"I just think of all the young guns saying to their photographers: `Make me look good'. But guys like Justin Timberlake... bring 'em on. I'm not afraid of going up against them even though I'm old enough to be their big brother."
On June 22, the singer returns to Scotland with rock supergroup Bon Jovi.
They'll play a spectacular, open-air concert at Ibrox Stadium in Glasgow to mark their 20th anniversary in the music industry. It almost sounds like an old cliche but Jon Bon Jovi is the ultimate local boy made good.
He was brought up in the tough Asbury Park neighbourhood in New Jersey, just a ferry ride across the Hudson from Manhattan. Fellow superstar Bruce Springsteen lived nearby.
Jon now lives in a beautiful French-style chateau with Dorothea and children Stephanie, nine, Jesse, seven, and baby Jacob, just a short distance from his childhood home.
The singer - whose Italian family name is Bongiovi - talks with a disarming frankness of the time when huge royalty cheques began dropping through his letter box.
He said: "Making lots of money was wonderful. We had our goofy period - there's no question about that. In the band, we'd play a little game known as `Beat The Gift'. If one of us spent a lot of cash buying somebody a present, the next guy would have to spend even more to outdo him.
"I shelled out a fortune. Not to act the big shot... just to let the people around me share in my success. I went through a crazy spending period. It was actually pretty sad. I'd buy Ferraris or Mercedes for friends. I'd also pay for houses or college educations - and I use the plural - for others. I was very happy to do it.
"But that's not what being successful is about. Suddenly, I was one of the bosses of this multi-million-dollar organisation. Yet I was just the same idiot who was drinking in the bar two nights ago. So I had to grow up pretty quickly and I had to do it in public."
Jon has also enjoyed a successful parallel career as an actor. He was cast as the boyfriend of Ally McBeal - playing opposite Calista Flockhart - in the final season of the hip US comedy series. He appeared in Sex In The City, too, with Sarah Jessica Parker. Jon's movie roles include U-571, with Matthew McConaughey, and Pay It Forward, with Kevin Spacey and Helen Hunt.
He said: "I never aspired to do television. It was too much like a day job for me.
"Calista is a very accomplished stage actress... but everyone thinks of her now as Ally McBeal.
"I know if I had not been lead singer of Bon Jovi I wouldn't have got the opportunity to act.
"There were a few hurdles I had to overcome. But when I went on set with Kevin Spacey and Helen Hunt they weren't the least bit interested in my singing career. To them, I won the role because I was an actor. They treated me as such... and it was very refreshing."
It's a far cry from Jon's humble origins in New Jersey. He worked in a series of menial jobs in fast food restaurants or selling subscriptions for magazines. But he dreamed of being a rock singer and landed a job earning $50 a week running errands in a local recording studio.
Jon recalls: "At the age of 16, I had a naive innocence and thought I could make a career as a rock singer. I was still living with my parents - eating their food and not having to worry about paying the rent - so that blind faith fuelled me in my drive to get into music.
"I used to see Bob Dylan walk up 53rd Street carrying his guitar with no minders or hangers-on. Nobody bothered him. When Bon Jovi became successful, I soon discovered it was the so-called B list celebrities who would act like big stars.
"That was never what I was all about. Being a celebrity means nothing to me. Where I came from in New Jersey, there were no Joneses to keep up with."
Jon's parents both served in the US Marine Corps, so the events of 9/11 and the war in Iraq both had a profound effect on him. "The attack changed my life dramatically," he said. "My sister was in one of the towers. Fortunately, she got out. My neighbour lost a brother. My publicist lost her husband the day after their first wedding anniversary.
"Firemen died in the tragedy whose kids went to school with my kids. Smoke was wafting over my house as we watched the Twin Towers burn from the beach."
Jon volunteered to work on the sandwich lines to help the relief effort. His group did charity concerts and telethons to raise money for the families of those lost. Last September, Bon Jovi starred in a massive concert for 500,000 people in Times Square which became a freedom rally.
He said: "The 9/11 tragedy left it's mark on the people of New York... but not forever.
"I'd like to think that New York - being the resilient place it is - went back to being its arrogant, cocky self. Now, people still cuss you out after holding a door open or cabbies still honk their horns if you cross the street in front of them.
"That's probably the perception New York would want the world to have of it."
Jon has also been an outspoken critic of President George W Bush and his decision to wage war on Iraq.
Coming from a military family, he's 100 per cent behind the troops in the Gulf. During Bon Jovi's show in Seattle, the singer dedicated their hit song, The Distance, to US soldiers.
He said: " I'm adamantly outspoken against this administration and continue to be. I'm not a fan of the President.
"But I have to stand behind those brave young men and women. Many of them only joined the army, navy, marines or air force so they could get a good education.
"But you've got 21-year-old girls like Jessica Lynch - God bless her - out on the front line.
"I come from a family of two marines. But war is a terrible thing. So I'm grateful to those who served our country."
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04-27-2003, 02:57 PM
How can firemen afford to live in that area??? Not to mention afford to have their kids attend a private school?? 
