Bret Michaels.Photo: Michaels Entertainment Group Inc
Bret Michaelslikens his body at age 60 to a classic muscle car.
“I’m still fast, and I’m still fun to drive,” the Poison rocker quips in this week’s issue of PEOPLE, on newsstands Friday. “I just need a lot more maintenance.”
Michaels — who celebrated his milestone 60th on March 15 — has always lived life at full throttle.
After he found stardom with his band Poison in the late ’80s with hits like “Every Rose Has Its Thorn” and “Nothin' but a Good Time,” drama within the group and a series of health setbacks —complications with his type 1 diabetes, a near-fatal brain hemorrhage and a stroke in 2010 —threatened to derail his career.
“It’s been a crazy roller-coaster ride,” says Michaels, who’s a dad to two daughters with his on-and-off partner of 30 years, model Kristi Gibson. “After all the adversity I’ve been through, I just feel grateful to be here. If I were to go today — and I hope I don’t! — I would die with a full heart.”
Bret Michaels.Michaels Entertainment Group Inc.
“I was almost at ketoacidosis, which is when the organs shut down,” he says. “It was the first time I’d ever seen my father cry.”
He was often in and out of the hospital as a child and had to have insulin injections four to five times a day.
“It was scary,” recalls Michaels, who fell in love with music around the same time and taught himself how to play harmonica and guitar. “But my parents told me, ‘You’ve got to choose not to be a victim.'”
Three years later — after mercurial guitarist C.C. DeVille joined the band amid a lineup change —Poison released the gloriously glam metal music video for their hit “Talk Dirty to Me,” which rocketed their debut LP,Look What the Cat Dragged In, up the chart. The group landed a headlining gig at their “dream” venue, New York City’s Madison Square Garden.
But during the show, Michaels went into insulin shock and collapsed onstage.
“I woke up in the emergency room,” he remembers. “Everyone was positive that I was a heroin addict. Rather than be embarrassed, I told the truth. That was the first time I told the world that I was a diabetic.”
“C.C. and I get along 99 percent of the time. When it goes bad, it turns into a fistfight,” says Michaels of the volatile moment. “Parting ways [then] was heartbreaking for me, but he’s one of my best friends now.”
The drama continued in 1994 when Michaels crashed his Ferrari into a telephone pole while racing friends, breaking his nose and several ribs.
“That was a big turning point,” he says. “I was just having fun partying, but it got to the point where it did get — for a while — out of control.”
A year after the set incident, while competing onCelebrity Apprentice,he had an emergency appendectomy, a near-fatal brain hemorrhage and a stroke. (It’s unclear what caused these health issues, but diabetes can increase the risk of hemorrhage and stroke.)
Michaels remains as ambitious as ever, but his motivation today comes from the most important women in his life.
“I love seeing my daughters go through the different stages of life,” he says of Raine, 22, a sports journalist, andJorja, 18, a recent high school grad. “I say to them every day, ‘This is the journey … the ups, the downs, the challenges. Just get in there, and put one foot in front of the other.'”
After three decades of makeups and breakups, Michaels and Gibson — who had their first date in 1993 (a motorcycle ride, of course) — have also found their groove. “Love, to me, is a continuous work in progress,” he says.
Though they were briefly engaged from 2010 to 2012, Michaels isn’t sure marriage is in the cards for them. Rather, the couple is focused on having a true partnership.
“It doesn’t come easy. You got to find what works for your relationship,” he says. “We like the same things and like doing the same things, but we also know how to be together — and apart — and then back together again.”
Bret Michaels, Kristi Gibson and their daughters Jorja and Raine.Michaels Entertainment Group Inc.
Through the years, what’s kept them close in difficult moments is their love for their daughters.
“We’re great parents together,” says Michaels, “and we sincerely love our kids.”
As he embarks on a new decade, Michaels is leaning into his first love: music. He’s performing solo on tour, but he insists Poison isn’t going anywhere.
“There’s a brotherhood there,” he says. “We’re never breaking up.”
In the last few weeks, he’s been listening toLuke Combs’ hit single “Doin’ This,” on repeat.
“I wake up and still feel as passionate today as I was when I was standing in my water-soaked basement in Pennsylvania playing music,” he says. “People ask, ‘What would you be doing if you weren’t doing music?’ No matter what, I’d still be doing this. I have purpose.”
Tickets for Michael’sParti-Gras tourare on sale now.
For more on Bret Michaels' life at 60, pick up the latest issue of PEOPLE, on newsstands everywhere Friday.
source: people.com
