Poison frontman Bret Michaels appeared no worse for wear in his first televised interview on Oprah Winfrey’s show today (May 19) after suffering a potentially fatal brain hemorrhage.
Michaels, 47, spoke to Oprah live via satellite and shed a tear as his daughter discussed her fear of losing her dad to the medical emergency.
“The scariest part was thinking that my dad could die tonight,” daughter Raine said. “All these memories went flashing through my head of him.
“My first time on stage with him, my first time singing in the mic with him, my first time playing basketball. To think my dad wouldn’t be growing up with me or walking me down the aisle for my wedding was really heartbreaking,” she said in a clear voice.
At that point, the raucous singer teared up. “I’ll tell you, I said I wasn’t going to cry. That got me. I got the lump in my throat,” he told Oprah.
Michaels was articulate and seemed normal, even though his symptoms included dizziness, loss of motor functions and slurred speech.
“My life didn’t flash before my eyes,” Michaels said. “It wasn’t like, all of a sudden, a rerun of my life. What happened was, I got very sad. I went into completely just asking God, ‘You have to let me through this.’ ”
The singer said he prayed to God a lot. “I was doing a lot of asking at that point,” he said.
“I know I’ve done a lot of rotten things, but I’m asking for a break here. If you could cut me a break just this time, I promise I’ll be better in the future.”
“It’s really quite a miracle that he’s done so well,” said Dr. Joseph Zabramski, who treated Michaels. “He was really unable to stay awake.”
The exact cause of the hemorrhage is unknown, but the affliction is more common than people realize,” Zabramski said. The chance of a recurrence is also no higher than anyone in his age group.
But he is not totally out of the woods.
Michaels, who also suffers from childhood diabetes, said his lower extremities are difficult to move and his neck is very stiff and he continues to have headaches, though they are slowly fading.