A Philadelphia musician claims he started the rumor to vent his frustration over the press the singer has picked up for his non-musical endeavors such as a recent Advil commercial and his foundation’s Red Bank, N.J., community restaurant.
On Dec. 19 a rumor went flying around the Internet that the Bon Jovi singer had died. A website called Daily New Blog International picked up on the story and reported that “paramedics found him in a coma at his Empress Hotel” in Asbury Park, N.J. The blog says that after a 911 call was made, Jon Bon Jovi was taken to Jersey Shore Medical Center, where he suffered cardiac arrest.
To prove that he was not dead the band posted a picture on its Facebook page of the frontman standing in front of a Christmas tree holding a sign saying “Heaven looks a lot like New Jersey” along with the date and time “Dec. 19, 2011 6:00.”
Jeffrey Goho of Fairless Hills, Pa., told the Asbury Park Press he posted the hoax on a friend’s Twitter account.
“I’m in a band as well, and I was going into the recording studio, and we had talked about how the music industry just started taking a turn into crazy new worlds that no one, really, can assess,” Goho told the paper. “Long story short, I was talking to my band members on their down time, and we got so worked up in the conversation, I just kind of took the liberty and started (the rumor), because I was so irritated.
“All I heard was ‘Bon Jovi this,’ ‘Bon Jovi’s starting a restaurant.’ What was the latest one? The Advil commercial (featuring Bon Jovi)? It was like, ‘Jeez, (Bon Jovi) was a household name due to the music, not the business.’ So I’m not proud of it. I’m getting a lot of backlash from it, but as stupid as it sounds, that’s how it started. I just had a blurb and went with it.”
Goho said that his tweet earned him a bunch of hate mail along with some new fans for his band, Minutia. The musician, who denies the rumor was a publicity stunt for Minutia, admitted that he was too quick to judge how Bon Jovi spends his time off stage.
“Ultimately, the more thought that I gave to it after reading everyone’s responses I realized that his endeavors, his business endeavors, have actually made the tri-state area prosper, hence more musicians have more available places to go, more people to play to, and I was quite wrong.”
Click here for the story from the Asbury Park Press.