Thought bubble: “Why me?”
Looks like Jon Bon Jovi couldn’t, ahem, run away from this one. On July 2, 2016, the singer got roped into an impromptu performance with a wedding band and we’ve got the video below so you can experience the awkwardness in all its glory.
What looked like it was going to be a normal, incognito day for the superstar filled with cake and a slow dance or two was quickly turned into a cringe-worthy acoustic duet performance of a Bon Jovi classic with the wedding band’s singer.
The wedding, which took place in Miami, was for a friend of the classic rocker and his wife. Vows were said, toasts were made and all was going smoothly until the band started playing “Living on a Prayer” and JBJ was spotted sitting in a chair close to the stage. The action unfolds from there with several meme worthy moments taking shape.
In the video, you can see the wedding singer, Lourdes Valentino, motioning to JBJ to come up and share the stage with her. After he declines, she continues on with the song for another verse and then decides to walk over and proceed to sing in front of him, taunting him with the microphone. After about 30 seconds of this and a series of forced smiles, JBJ reluctantly grabs the microphone from her and waves her away from him. Jon joins the band for the rest of the song, which includes a few minutes of the remaining verse and choruses along with a painful trumpet solo.
After the video of the performance hit YouTube, Valentino received backlash from online commenters complaining that he was “ambushed” and “put on the spot.” Valentino, on the other hand, seems very pleased with the performance. “It was such a great, beautiful moment,” the wedding singer told the Miami Herald.
From the priceless collection of mortified expressions caught on his face throughout the video, one can only imagine the thoughts running thru Jon’s mind. However, it is nice to know that even iconic megastars who live most of their lives on stage can get a little weird when put on the spot.
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Related: Our coverage of Bon Jovi’s induction into the Rock Hall Class of 2018
When Bon Jovi tours, tickets are available here and here. The band’s recordings, including their 2024 album, Forever, are available here.
3 Comments so far
Jump into a conversationYou wouldn’t just be a trash rag type of tabloid bullshit site looking for hits on your own page, would you? I mean that headline wasn’t bait, was it? Tsk tsk tsk.
First of all, I thought the band’s arrangement of the song was pretty cool. They sounded really good, until they modulated.
Sure, Bon Jovi appeared to feel slightly awkward, as he a guest, and very likely wanted to remain so. But at the same time, while watching, I was thinking how cool it must have felt to hear this band playing of version of a song you wrote. I would think that other than the spotlight being put on him, he had to kind of dig that.
It didn’t take all that much “taunting” as you put it by the band’s singer (you write it up as though she was obnoxious, but she’s obviously just honoring the man within the context of her job to entertain) to get Jon to get up in the spirit of the fun, and be a good sport. It made me like him a lot more. Other than the fact that he can no longer hit some of those notes, I don’t think he was all that uncomfortable, and the band’s singer picked him up wherever he needed help, so he wasn’t embarrassed.
This is an unnecessarily negatively painted storyline of an event that just looked like fun to me for everyone involved. I’m sure the bride and groom were as thrilled as all their guests. Way to go Jon!
Although I must admit, Jon looks and dresses more like a 1970s mob guy from “The Rockford Files,” than he does a rock star in his private time.