Bon Jovi and Dorothea Hurley really had a high school romance and have been keeping it alive for more than three decades. As the couple gets ready to step into the fourth decade of their marriage, many have asked what the secret to their long-withstanding relationship is. To answer that question, the couple has a lot to respond with.
Though they have been together for so many years as a much-loved couple, things weren’t so easy for them in the beginning. Bon Jovi spoke about how “shocked” everyone was about their decision to elope and how everyone including his parents were against the marriage. Here’s how their entire relationship started and what relationship advice they have after spending almost four decades together.
Bon Jovi And Dorothea Hurley’s Relationship
Both of them have known each other since they were in high school, in 1980, and it was truly love at first sight. “She let me cheat off her in history,” he told PEOPLE in 2020. “I was immediately drawn to her from the minute I saw her and that never changed.”
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In 1989, as the two basked in the success of the band hitting NO.1’s, they made the best impulsive decision of their lives and decided to elope to Vegas.
Talking about the marriage he told PEOPLE, “We were in Los Angeles, California, the band was on the road on the New Jersey tour, and if you opened up the curtains of my hotel room, there’s a big billboard of the five of us [Bon Jovi band members] staring into my window,” Bon Jovi recalls.
He continued, “My girlfriend, who was my fiancée at the time, we had a night off, and I said, ‘I need a higher high — I got an idea. Let’s go to Vegas now.’ And she said, ‘Now?’ I said, ‘Now.’”
This decision later brought in a few disagreements from everyone around them, but eventually, things cooled down. In 1993 they welcomed their first daughter Stephanie Rose, followed by son Jesse in 1995, Jacob in 2002, and Romeo in 2004.
When asked about the secrets of their long marriage, Jovi simply has an array of answers and they all fit the narrative perfectly. On one occasion he said, “Somehow it works. I think because we grow at the same rate. We grew equally and not in opposite directions.”
“She’s the glue … I’m the crazy visionary with all kinds of things flying, and the seams are all splitting. She’s the one following me with the glue and the thread and needle, keeping it all together,” Jovi finished.
While another time he said that it’s because of mutual respect and the fact that forty years of being in love later they still like hanging out with each other. He said, “Having grown up together and grown together. And we really like each other. We want to hang out.″
Such a perfect relationship also came with a lot of struggles as the couple had to deal with the world disagreeing with their relationship. Here’s what Jovi had to say about the backlash they got after they got married.
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Why Did Everyone Oppose To Their Marriage?
In an interview with Mirror, Bon Jovi talked about the circumstances following their marriage and how the entirety of America stood against their relationship. This also became a problem for his career as his fans weren’t happy to see their favorite artist getting married.
“It was like Harry Styles or Justin Timberlake getting married. I was that to the young girls in my time,” Jovi said. “When I came back from Vegas my manager was furious. He was like, ‘America’s boy is now married… that’s not a good career move’. The record company was also despondent.”
He further added, “America wasn’t happy on that Monday when they found out about the wedding and a lot of people tried to ruin a beautiful thing. They tried to cheat us out of that moment.”
But his fans weren’t the only ones upset at his union. The marriage didn’t go well with even his family. “It didn’t fare well with my mother, either,” he said, “F*** no. She was not impressed.”
Everyone was pretty shocked about the marriage, as he recalls. “it shocked a lot of people — shocked about everybody: the band, management, agents, lawyers, parents, you name it,’” he added.
“It’s a shame because it should have been a beautiful moment, but after we did it, people were trying to take it away, until I stood up and went, ‘Wait a minute, why are we living our life for anyone else?’ And 35 years later, we’re still married,” Jovi concluded.
All’s well that ends well it seems because even after all this time, their marriage is as strong as ever and they are enjoying life with their four children, one of whom is all set to get married to British talent Millie Bobby Brown.
As of now, the band is all set to release their 16th album ‘Forever‘ on June 7th.
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