No Richie on current leg of the tour

But I ordered and expected to get fries, not sliced apples.

And Bobby is the totally useless toy surprise that comes with my meal, obviously.

Happy Meals come with both fries and apples these days. I think this means that even when Richie comes back, Phil is still going to be on tour with Bon Jovi. The Happy Meal never lies!

LOL! I'm cool with both!

If this means Bobby will then become the McRib of the band, and only show up now and then, I can totally stomach it.

I like Bobby and think his vocals and rhythm guitar add to the mix. Leads need to go elsewhere and Jon needs to take the heat for his assignments. Bobby has been with the band 10 (?) years so Jon must be happy.

And sorry to be so sensitive but as someone who has struggled with body awareness and self confidence issues, I wish people would stop with the "fatty," "paying him in moon pies," etc comments. I KNOW you are joking but it is unnecessary. Stick to the music criticism.

I was really fat when I was a kid, when I was 13 I used to weight 100 kg and my height was 169 cm, in a few months I started training and was 68 kg. I had a lot of self confidence issues (and I still have, as I had a lesion and couldn't traing for 6 months and earned some weight, luckily, last week I started again), and I still find the moon pies comments hilarious as hell.

I agree. I'm pretty overweight due to a disability and I don't even know what moon pies are, but I was laughing my ass off at the situation.

I think the problem for most people Jackie is that 1) this is not the way the Richie most of us knew of acted. That Richie broke his shoulder on a break, was asked if he needed the next leg cancelled, said no and went. He shouldn't have as it turned out since that had alot to do with him ending up in rehab the first time, but that Richie wouldn't have missed a tour for anything short of severe illness, or a death.
2) the richie who missed touring for rehab was something everyone could understand and get behind

This richie who apparently has his panties ina wad about something and just quit in the middle of a tour, and no matter what the reasons, he is the one that walked away, no one forced him to leave. This richie is like some stranger, who is this guy?? I'm not saying he was wrong, maybe for him leaving was his only option or so he feels, but this guy isn't the Richie i've known of for nearly 30 years.

Interesting way of looking at this, and I agree that the perception, at least, is of a different Richie than the one we thought we knew, and I'm sure that's disconcerting (and disappointing) for a lot of fans.

Here's something else I thought of, though: With the broken shoulder thing, it was a situational thing; an accident. With rehab, it was again, a situational occurrence that needed treatment, and like you said, fans could get behind it.

The fact that Richie's behavior seems so out of character to us this time suggests to me that it is indeed personal, rather than situational, or an accident, or 'something outside himself' this time around. Whatever it is that has caused him to leave does (I suspect) affect him more gravely than a broken shoulder did or even, possibly--alcoholism did. After all, this absence has dragged on for three months, and in that time, apparently Jon and Richie haven't spoken to each other. There are the swipes at each other in the press. This is all very uncharacteristic of the band we thought we knew.

I'm not saying that Richie's way of handling this is the best way (to leave mid-tour) and his reputation is obviously taking a hit because the perception is that he is unprofessional and doesn't care about his fans. Perception isn't always reality, though. Maybe he didn't handle it the way we would have, but maybe to separate himself from the internal workings of the band is the only way he feels he can deal with something that apparently hits too close for him to continue in their orbit.

When he broke his shoulder, he continued to play. When he went to rehab, he came back after a month ready to play. This time, he shows no overt signs of being ready to come back and play. Again, this seems uncharacteristic, given his passion for music. In fact, the fashion stuff with Nikki (to me) almost seems like a cover for Richie, where he can get enthusiastic about it, as if to say, 'See? I have a life and things going on outside of my identity with the band. I don't need you." I feel that Jon is, essentially, saying the same thing from his end. Right now, it's basically a standoff, which is why, in my opinion, any talk of a definitive comeback is so vague.

Cringeworthy stuff when Richie jumps in at the end to tell us Nikki's outfit is their design. I also hate interviews like that where they 'flash' between comments- what is being left out in between?

Anyway... Him being burned out. Not nessecarily issues between/inside the band, just him having issue with the band/tour scheduling? It certainly gives a different impression to the other interview, which makes me wonder how reliable his words are- is he just saying whatever words come into his head because he's nervous about answering and being put on the spot?