Stephanie Rose Bongiovi – The Sad Story Of Jon Bon Jovi’s Daughter

The story of Stephanie Rose Bongiovi can be viewed as a warning about how your influence can extend down to your children. While she leads a full and healthy life now, things could have taken a drastically different path.

If you’re a fan of rock music then you’re probably already familiar with the “Sex, Drugs, and Rock ‘n’ Roll” experience. Many rock stars have used this phrase to justify their substance abuse in order to have a bit of fun, or put simply, as a temporary fix to deal with the pressures of fame.

As great as it might feel in the moment, there are always consequences for indulging in this kind of reckless activity.

Not only can drug use have major physical and psychological effects on your body, but, in many cases, it can cause harm to the people around the person using whether they mean to or not.

As a result, we often see headlines about rock stars succumbing to their struggles with drugs and alcohol, but sometimes we also hear of the children of such celebrities following the same path and being in the headlines for all the wrong reasons.

Read on below to discover what went wrong for Stephanie Rose Bongiovi and how she, with the help of her family, managed to turn her life around.

Jon Bon Jovi

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Early Life

John Francis Bongiovi Jr. was born in New Jersey in 1962. He is best known as Jon Bon Jovi, the founder, and frontman of the legendary rock group: Bon Jovi.

Aged 16, he started playing clubs in New Jersey and began to gain a bit of recognition. During this time, while he was still in high school, Bon Jovi met a keyboardist named David Bryan, and together they formed a blues band named Atlantic City Expressway. 

Then, at the age of 18 in 1980, Bon Jovi released his first single titled “Runaway.“ It garnered lots of attention – and set him firmly on the road to success. In fact, nothing was going to get in his way – and he was going to do whatever it took to make sure he got there.

Achievements With The Band

In 1983, the “Bon Jovi” band gained the attention of record executive Derek Shulman. After this, they began to play larger capacity venues, and were even the opening act for rock superstars such as Kiss!

Their 1984-released self-titled album became a massive commercial success and really put the band on the map.

But it was their third album, Slippery When Wet that saw their fame really begin to grow. This is also where Jon Bon Jovi became a true rock star and began embracing his new, wilder lifestyle.

With some iconic songs such as “Livin’ on a Prayer” and “Wanted Dead or Alive” achieving widespread success, Slippery When Wet sold over 14 million copies and went platinum within six weeks of its release.

Since then, Jon Bon Jovi has written numerous hits, and still to this day, the rock ‘n’ roll legend continues to perform on some of the world’s biggest stages.

In addition to releasing two solo studio albums in the 1990s, he has released 15 albums with the band and has also sold over 130 million records globally.

In 2006, Bon Jovi entered the UK Music Hall of Fame. And in 2018, they were finally inducted into the U.S. Rock and Roll Hall Of Fame.

Solo Accolades

As a reward for his phenomenal songwriting talents, Jon Bon Jovi became an entrant of the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2009. This remains one of his crowning achievements.

Bon Jovi also boasts a varied musical resume that includes singing, playing guitar, songwriting, and occasionally even acting.

While celebrities aren’t always recognized for their philanthropic work and generosity, this rock star appears to be a clear exception.

He founded the Jon Bon Jovi Soul Foundation in 2006, which aims to help with the issues of homelessness and poverty and he has even been known to help out in the foundation’s restaurants on frequent occasions.

Family And Children

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Equally importantly, Bon Jovi is known to be a devoted family man. While he began to pursue a music career during high school, he met his wife, Dorothea Hurley.

They later married in a spontaneous Las Vegas ceremony in 1989. The two have been married for more than 30 years.

Despite his rock-star life, and the temptations that come with it, Bon Jovi chose to face the struggles of his drug and alcohol addiction head-on and turned everything around before any of his children were born.

The couple have welcomed four children together throughout their marriage, Stephanie, Jesse, Jacob, and Romeo Bongiovi.

Stephanie’s Relationship With Her Father

Bon Jovi’s eldest child, Stephanie Rose Bongiovi, was born on May 31, 1993, in New Jersey. She lived a relatively sheltered life growing up, as did her siblings, even as their father continued to sell out arenas and stadiums worldwide. 

It’s clear to see that the father-daughter bond shared by the two members of the Bongiovi family has always been a strong one, especially since she is his only daughter.

Jon even wrote a song called I Got the Girl to express his love for his daughter, which was included on his studio album Crush (2000). 

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The Sad Story Of Stephanie Rose Bongiovi

After having experimented with drugs early on in his career, Bon Jovi has since been able to rise above his addiction.

And he clearly didn’t want the same sort of negative influence to be thrust onto his daughter or his other children.

Unfortunately, despite her father’s best efforts to keep her away from this negative side of fame, Stephanie found herself exposed to (and experimenting with) such substances throughout her time in college. This resulted in a highly traumatic and extremely life-changing event.

In 2012, Stephanie was a freshman at Hamilton College. She lived on-site in her own dorm – and it would be in this very room where she was found to have overdosed on heroin.

The situation was so serious that she was taken directly to the nearest hospital where she remained unresponsive for a considerable period of time.

She came clean to her father about what actually happened as soon as she woke up. And like any concerned parent, Jon was incredibly concerned for his daughter. He also faced intense public scrutiny for setting a bad example for his daughter.

Since then, Stephanie sobered up and remained clean, but the musician remains far more concerned about his children than ever before.

The Awful Consequences

After recovering in hospital Stephanie was then arrested alongside her college friend, Ian Grant. Both were charged with criminal possession of a controlled and highly addictive substance, along with the illegal possession of marijuana.

However, all charges were dropped under New York state’s “Good Samaritan” law, which encourages the reporting of all overdoses to prevent as many deaths as possible.

Both individuals went on to live the rest of their lives as normally as possible. However, this traumatic moment had a significant impact on all of her family as well as herself.

Life After The Incident

Due to not wanting to shame her, or to draw unnecessary attention to the situation, both Jon and Dorothea wanted the press to give their daughter as much privacy as possible.

This is mainly because, as Dorothea stated in a 2016 interview, “It happens to a lot of families that you would never know, and we dealt with it as a family.”

Rather than turning it into a situation where Stephanie was shamed for her actions, it became an opportunity for her – and anyone following the situation – to learn what not to do. Especially while you’re still young.

And while the horrific events had a major physical impact on her body, Stephanie eventually got clean and hasn’t experimented with similar substances ever since.

What Is Stephanie Rose Bongiovi Up To Now?

While this event no doubt had a short-term negative impact on her well-being, it seems as though it was one of the biggest moments of change in Stephanie Rose Bongiovi’s life.

She began to put effort in to get control back in her life. She started this process off by building her career prospects and making a name for herself in her own right.

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One of her starting jobs involved working as an assistant at The Weinstein Company. She was then hired as an intern at The Daily Show with Jon Stewarts, and a production intern working with Vice Media LLC.

In terms of her other achievements, she graduated college with a liberal arts degree, and has also starred as a model in Nikki Lund’s London-based fashion show.

She is now working as a freelance production assistant, model, and camera operator and seems to enjoy life to the fullest.

It seems that despite placing herself in an incredibly unfortunate situation when younger, she followed in her famous father’s footsteps and turned her life around.

To get a little insight from the legend himself, check out the video below from Katie Couric.

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