Bret Michaels and his band Poison were no strangers to sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll in the 1980s, but the hair metal lifestyle was hard on Michaels for a different reason.
Michaels, now 61, was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes when he was just 6 years old, meaning that he had to be extra-careful about partying hard with the band.
“When it first starts to happen, things happen day by day as you’re going along,” Michaels exclusively told Us Weekly ahead of the release of A&E’s Biography: Bret Michaels special. “First, you’re living in a warehouse in a sleeping bag behind the back of a dry cleaner for three years. You’re trying to make a record deal. No one’s signing you. There’s all that. And there’s moments that were absolutely life-threateningly tough.”
Michaels’ family helped him track down insulin on the road, but it wasn’t always easy to get his hands on the medication he needed to stay alive.
“We’d go to the free clinics, and they had to make sure I wasn’t a junkie,” he recalled. “Because they’re not just gonna hand you a syringe. … They go through, they test, they check, and it is an absolute struggle that I knew was coming. So I just learned to deal with it. But I had some absolutely really tough days.”
Things famously came to a head in 1987 when Poison played their first show at the legendary Madison Square Garden in New York City — and Michaels collapsed on stage.
“Every band I ever loved I went to see there,” he explained. “And I was like, ‘This is it.’ And about maybe four songs, five in, I went into insulin shock. I went out cold and don’t remember any of it.”
Media reports subsequently suggested that Michaels had overdosed on drugs, but he decided to correct the record and go public with his diabetes diagnosis.
“What was great about that was instead of what a lot of people thought would happen, promoters would walk away — ‘If he’s diabetic, what if he gets sick? We have to cancel shows’ — they embraced it with me,” Michaels told Us. “The fans embraced it. And this was long before the internet, so in letters, people were like, ‘Oh, my God, my kid’s diabetic. I’ve been diabetic.’ And it added a great new chapter to my life. … What could have been a disaster turned out to be a great triumph.”
While Michaels had to watch his insulin levels on the road, he assured Us that there were still plenty of rock star antics happening behind the scenes.
“It was fun,” he teased. “It was like us going to college. … It’s like a wild frat. It’s like Animal House, you know what I mean? It was a frat party just every night. We’re going crazy, having fun.”
That happy-go-lucky attitude extended to the band’s wardrobe, which was as much a part of their shows in those days as their music.
“We had no money … but we were the kind of people that were inventive,” Michaels explained. “We would shop every second- and third-hand store for any kind of what we call sort of a glam, street vibe. We would go in there and just find stuff that was $2, $3, and you put it together. … I can’t say that all my fashion decisions were fantastic … but living in the moment at the time was fantastic. And I always laugh. What’s even scarier wasn’t the craziness — it was that I actually thought it looked pretty cool.”
Michaels goes deep on his past with Poison and his subsequent solo career in Biography: Bret Michaels, which kicks off A&E’s new series of specials on rock legends including Alice Cooper, Dee Snider and Sammy Hagar. Michaels took producers to his hometown of Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, so they could get the full Bret experience while making the show.
“They were willing to take a deeper dive rather than just barely scratch the surface,” he told Us. “I said, ‘Let’s do this over a stretch of time.’ In other words, ‘Let me take you to places I grew up, crossroads in my life. Here’s a spot in my life that was a deciding moment for me, standing with my work boots in the slushy snow, in the cigarette butts, and I decided I’m going to California and I’m gonna write original music and whatever it takes.’ That’s what it takes.”
Biography: Bret Michaels airs on A&E Sunday, June 16, at 9 p.m. ET. The special will be available on demand and to stream on the A&E app, AETV.com and across major providers’ VOD platforms on Monday, June 17.
