Bret Michaels
Bret Michaels is an American singer, best known as the lead vocalist of the glam metal band Poison. He was born Bret Michael Sychak, to Wally and Marjorie Sychak, in Butler, Pennsylvania. He has two sisters, Michelle and Nicole.At the age of six he fell ill, and during a three-week stay in the hospital, he was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes.
Bret began playing the guitar as a teenager. He formed the band Paris, in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania in 1983 with a couple friends. After playing the Pennsylvania bar circuit, in early 1984 they moved to Los Angeles to seek fame on the Sunset Boulevard scene, eventually changing their name to Poison, and moved to Los Angeles.
Local publicity about the band eventually led to a record deal with Enigma Records, and their first album, Look What the Cat Dragged In. It did not see great success until 1987, when Michaels convinced the band to film a video for their song, "Talk Dirty to Me", despite the fact that use of videos as a marketing tool was not as widespread a practice at the time. As a result, the album went platinum, and the band became famous. In March of that year, however, Bret collapsed onstage due to his diabetes. Responding to rumors that he was a drug addict, he announced publicly that he was a diabetic.
In 1984 he he met 16-year-old Tracy Lewis, who would become both his girlfriend, and the muse for one of his most memorable songs. By 1987 his relationship with Lewis dissolved because she felt that fame had changed him. Though Bret contends that Lewis was unfaithful to him, Lewis (now Lewis Crosby) insists that it was Bret who was unfaithful. Bret was inspired by the breakup to write "Every Rose Has Its Thorn", explaining that the rose represented his fame and success, whereas the loss of his relationship represented the thorn. The song was released as a power ballad single in December 1988, and is regarded as "the ultimate 80s anthem about heartbreak."
Throughout the early 1990s, Poison became one of the biggest glam metal bands in the world. However, their lives were characterized by the escalating tension between Bret and another band member from their mutual drug use, which came to a head during their 1990 "Flesh and Blood" tour.
Bret recorded his first solo album in 1998 A Letter from Death Row, the soundtrack to the same-titled movie he directed, wrote, and starred in. In 2003, he released the studio album Songs of Life which featured the singles "Raine" and "Bittersweet". He also served as a judge during the 2005 season of reality television singing competition Nashville Star and released a country rock album in the same year called Freedom of Sound .
Bret was involved with Pamela Anderson. An abridged version of an explicit sex tape the couple made appeared on the Internet in 1988 and was released on DVD on September 7, 2005, by Metro Studios. Bret has two daughters with Kristi Lynn Gibson. Raine Elizabeth Sychak was born in May 2000, and Jorja Bleu Sychak was born in May 2005. They live in Scottsdale, Arizona. On April 12, 2010, Bret was rushed to the hospital after suffering intense stomach pains, and an emergency appendectomy was performed. On April 21 or April 22, 2010, he was again rushed to the hospital, this time with an "excruciating" headache. Doctors discovered that he had suffered a massive subarachnoid hemorrhage. He was in critical condition, and while some reports suggested that his condition had stabilized,others later stated that this was premature. On April 28, his representatives reported that he was conscious and speaking, albeit slowly, for the first time since he was hospitalized. In a news conference on May 5, 2010, Dr. Joseph Zabramski said Bret has been released from the hospital and that "He's just one of those lucky people" and that "he'll make a complete recovery". Since being released from the hospital Bret has stated that he is contemplating marriage with the mother of his two children with whom he has recently reconciled. In a May 5, 2010, interview he stated: [Getting married], for sure, is something I have never done. Kristi's such a great person. We'll see if that happens. But yes, that may be one of the big things on the list. My first goal is to get back (to) 100 per cent. I want to continue to rock the world, and I want to continue to love my family and be a good father. On May 20, 2010, it was reported on his official website that Bret has been "readmitted to the hospital this week after suffering numbness on the left side of his body". While conducting diagnostic tests it was found that Bret has a "patent foramen ovale (PFO), a hole in the heart." It was further reported that his condition is "operable and treatable" and his doctors believe they "have diagnosed the problem that caused the transient ischemic attack (TIA) or warning stroke", but that they "feel it is highly unlikely this is connected to the brain hemorrhage he suffered just a few weeks earlier".