Jon Bon Jovi has admitted he had to be "talked off the ledge" before his rare throat surgery.
The Livin' on a Prayer singer, 62, had a vocal fold medialisation procedure, known as thyroplasty, in 2022.
Two years later, he's opened up about how he almost lost his voice.
"People had to talk me off the ledge, because you're like, 'I didn't do anything wrong! What's wrong?'" he recalled.
He admitted he would never agree to lip syncing on-stage to save his voice, saying, "I'd rather get hit by a bus on the highway."
After the operation, his voice took a while to recover. "I could talk the day after the surgery," he said. "I just sounded like the Godfather. It takes some retraining of the mind and the body and then the spirit, and you just have to be patient. I did not excel in the patience category. I'm not Superman. It's just a tattoo that I have on my arm."
The musician has been on a strict fitness routine over the past two years, working on his core and back to help his recovery. He's also working with speech pathologists to retrain his vocal muscles.
"Don't doubt that I can't sing anymore. This isn't a situation that the singer has lost his voice," he said. "Whether or not I can ever do a 100-show tour again, I don't know. But if I can have joy on the stage on night one, that would be great."
His 16th studio album, Forever, will be released on 7 June.
