After three wild decades of fame, Jon Bon Jovi opens up about life on the road – and how he and wife Dorothea keep their love strong. Subscribe now for his untold story, only in PEOPLE!
Not too many rock stars are as adept at domestic life as Jon Bon Jovi.
Sure he has legions of fans, many since the ’80s, when his band Bon Jovi catapulted to stardom with their hit album Slippery When Wet. But that doesn’t mean the perennial sex symbol is a rolling stone.
“I’m not a journeyman,” Bon Jovi, 54, tells PEOPLE in this week’s cover story. Sitting down at his mansion in Red Bank, New Jersey, the singer opens up about the struggles of balancing life on the road and at home. “I know some people who are applause junkies. I’m not.”
For more on how Jon Bon Jovi and his high school sweetheart wife Dorothea balance fame and family, pick up the latest issue of PEOPLE, on newsstands Friday. Watch the full episode featuring Jon Bon Jovi at home, available now on the new People/Entertainment Weekly Network (PEN). Go to PEOPLE.com/PEN, or download the PEN app on Apple TV, Roku Players, Amazon Fire TV, Xumo, Chromecast, iOS and Android devices.
Though he has deep love for his fans, no one means more to the star than his high school sweetheart wife of 27 years, Dorothea, and their brood, daughter Stephanie, 23, and sons Jesse, 21, Jacob 14, and Romeo 12. “I go kicking and screaming,” he says of leaving his family to head out on the road as he’s done so many times over the last three decades. “You see my fingernails in the driveway.”
It’s something the rocker will have to deal with soon, as he and Bon Jovi set out to promote their new album This House Is Not For Sale, available Nov. 4. It marks the band’s big return after the singer’s friend and longtime lead guitarist Richie Sambora suddenly left the group in 2013. Luckily, the star’s homesickness never lasts long. He says, “Once I get to the first hotel I’m like, ‘Okay, I’m here.'”
As for coming back into the fold at home with Dorothea and the kids, that too can be a challenge. “You go from that life of vampires … then suddenly you’re taking the garbage out and the kids to school, going to bed at 10:30,” he describes. “It’s a dramatic change! In a perfect world you’d go to a place like astronauts and decompress for a few days before they let you out into the real world.”