Bret Michaels

Bret Michaels (born Bret Michael Sychak, March 15, 1963) is an American musician, actor, director, screenwriter, producer and reality television personality. He first gained fame as the lead vocalist of the glam metal band Poison who have sold over 30 million records worldwide and 15 million records in the United States alone. The band has also charted ten singles to the Top 40 of the Billboard Hot 100, including six Top 10 singles and the number-one single, "Every Rose Has Its Thorn". Besides his career as lead singer, he has several solo albums to his credit, including a Soundtrack album to the movie A Letter from Death Row in which Michaels starred in, wrote and directed in 1998 and a classic Poison style rock album Songs of Life in 2003. Michaels has appeared in several movies and TV shows, including as a judge on the talent show Nashville Star which lead to his country influenced rock album Freedom of Sound in 2005. He starred in the hit VH1 reality show Rock of Love with Bret Michaels and its sequels, which inspired his successful solo album Rock My World. He was the winning contestant on NBC's reality show Celebrity Apprentice 3 and also featured in his own reality Docu-series Bret Michaels: Life As I Know It, which inspired his highest charting album as a solo artist Custom Built, reaching #1 on Billboard's Hard Rock list.Michaels was born Bret Michael Sychak, to Wally and Marjorie Sychak, north of Pittsburgh in the city of Butler, Pennsylvania. He has two sisters, Michelle and Nicole. He claims that his parents had originally intended for him to have the middle name "Maverick", after the title character in the popular James Garner TV Western series Maverick. He is of Carpatho-Rusyn descent.. At the age of six he fell ill, and during a three-week stay in the hospital, he was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes.Michaels began playing the guitar as a teenager. With drummer Rikki Rockett, bass player Bobby Dall and guitarist Matt Smith, he formed the band Paris, in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania in 1983. 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. That same year he met 16-year-old Tracy Lewis, who would become both his girlfriend, and the muse for one of his most memorable songs. Eventually Matt Smith tired of the band's struggle to find fame, and returned home. He was replaced with C.C. DeVille, who would become both Michaels' friend and a source of conflict.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." The album went platinum, and the band became famous. In March of that year, however, Michaels collapsed onstage due to his diabetes. Responding to rumors that he was a drug addict, he announced publicly that he was a diabetic. 1987 also saw the dissolution of his relationship with Lewis, who felt that fame had changed him. Though Michaels contends that Lewis was unfaithful to him, Lewis (now Lewis Crosby) insists that it was Michaels who was unfaithful. Michaels 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 1980s and early 1990s Poison became one of the biggest glam metal bands in the world, recording their second album, the multi-platinum selling Open Up and Say... Ahh!, and their third album, the multi-platinum selling Flesh & Blood. However, their lives were characterized by the escalating tension between Michaels and DeVille that derived from their mutual drug use, which came to a head during their 1990/91 "Flesh and Blood" world tour. Also cited is the spectacle of DeVille's behavior during the 1991 MTV Video Music Awards. After getting into a fistfight with Michaels, DeVille left the band, and descended further into addiction. Poison went on with new guitarist Richie Kotzen recording the Gold album Native Tongue and then with guitarist Blues Saraceno recording the album Crack a Smile... and More!. In the mid 1990s, after a night of partying, Michaels came close to dying when he crashed his Ferrari into a telephone pole. He incurred serious injury, including broken ribs, a disfigured nose and lost teeth. In 1999, reunited with original guitarist C.C. Deville, Poison went on a successful greatest hits reunion tour. In the next decade Bret Michaels would split his time between Poison and a successful solo careerMichaels was portrayed as a guest singer in the video game Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock, which features him singing "Go That Far" from his solo career, and Poison's "Talk Dirty to Me. Michaels and his band visited troops at Al Asad Air Base on October 6, 2007, while on a tour of U.S. bases in Iraq in support of Armed Forces Entertainment. He earned $640,000 for the American Diabetes Association for competing in and ultimately winning the Celebrity Apprentice 3Michaels 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. Michaels' fear that Raine was "borderline diabetic" was a recurring element during Michaels' tenure on The Celebrity Apprentice 3, on which he appeared to raise money for the American Diabetes Association. Raine herself appeared on the season finale of that program on May 23, 2010, when her father won that season. While filming the finale of his reality show, Bret Michaels: Life As I Know It, Michaels proposed to Kristi Gibson, the mother of his two children and his on-again, off-again companion of 16 years. The finale aired December 20, 2010. In July 2012, Michaels announced that he and Gibson had separated. Michaels was involved with Pamela Anderson. An abridged version of an explicit sex tape the couple made appeared on the Internet in 1998 and was released on DVD on September 7, 2005, by Metro Studios. Michaels is a fan of the Pittsburgh Steelers of the National Football League and the Minnesota Wild of the National Hockey League. He has a personalized guitar bearing the Steelers' logo, and played the national anthem at Three Rivers Stadium. His favorite player was Jack Lambert, and Michaels has been a member of fan club "Lambert's Lunatics." He also likes the Peoria Rivermen of the American Hockey League and performs after home games. Michaels has a line of pet clothing and accessories called Pets Rock, sold at PetSmart .On April 12, 2010, Michaels was rushed to the hospital after suffering intense stomach pains, and an emergency appendectomy was performed. On April 21 or April 22, 2010, (sources differ), Michaels 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, Michael's 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 Michaels had been released from the hospital and that "He's just one of those lucky people" and that "he'll make a complete recovery". On May 20, 2010, it was reported on his official website that Michaels 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 Michaels 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". On Oct 11, 2011, Michaels commented on his 2010 health scare with the following: "“2010 was, without question, a roller coaster year for me. But when you have an amazing family, and you still have a lot music left to make, and you have such incredible and supportive fans behind you, you’re going to fight until the very last breath before you throw in that towel Bret Michaels' was injured during his opening performance at the 63rd Tony Awards. As he was ending his performance with Poison and exiting to the stage rear a large portion of descending set struck him on the head and knocked him down. The initial injuries reported was a broken nose. However the hemorrhage incident in 2010 prompted Michaels to file a lawsuit for unspecified damages against the Tony Award and CBS claiming the incident caused the hemorrhage. On May 14, 2012, the parties announced that they had agreed to settle the lawsuit for an undisclosed amount. Michaels thanked the Barrow Neurological Institute at St. Joseph’s Hospital and Medical Center in Phoenix for saving his life and career.

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20-08-2012 Tags: donja01

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