Thank You, Goodnight: The Bon Jovi Story, coming to Hulu

Yeah fair enough! I don;'t know what I'm expecting. Jon says Richie was on drugs, Richie says "no I wasn't" but mostly through magazines. If someone was saying I had a drug addiction when I was clean and sober, you'd think the "no I wasn't" would have been a bit louder but it's probably far more nuanced and complicated than that.

I'm undecided on what to think with this situation. I prefer truth, but there's only points of views here probably. There are accumulating reasons and sudden reasons and context, and fanbase have speculated for over a decade.

Am I glad to hear Jon explicitly mentioning more substance abuse? Not really. Then again, Richie overall was rather cool in handling his rockstar persona in general public (I think), but without a band and serious music output in several years, his position looks worse and worse. So the argument for "complete truth" and mentioning substances etc. grows weaker as years go by.

This is the interview where Jon says Richie watched 3 episodes at his house. Then in numerous other interviews says they don't talk. Must have been an awkward watch.

Some of me wants to Devil's Advocate and say "You can not talk to someone / have communication with them while also spending a day watching tv with them" but I'm not confident enough. It'd be too stupid a move to say such contradicatory things to the press but this is Jon..

It would be outright bizzare to claim they watched the documentary together if they didn't. I edge towards that being the truth over not talking.

On the same interview, Jon's "got to come to work" stuff is so tiresome. He was speaking relatively positively about Richie, that they watched the show together, etc. And then he digs by saying "you have to be able to play and sing". Says the guy who went 10 years not being able to sing and only woke up when his wife told him he was shit when he was rating a garbage show 8/10.

i believe jon said we arenot talking with richie as an answer about the doc and if he was involved...he wanted to say that jon had nth to do with Richies interviews...
having said that i believe jon comes out a bit dishonest and bitter about Richie...because its obvious he is the one denying his coming back...
Anyway my guess is they are not talking on a daily basis but there has been some communication and jon is thinking about him coming back if they are gonna tour the world..

I truly believe they watched it together. I also truly believe they haven't been in constant communication in the years since he left and after the doc. Both can be true. But when he says "no one has heard a word from him" that's where I get iffy.

The only issue that I have with Jon's recent comments is the one where he says "You gotta be able to play" or something along those lines, which implies that Richie was messing up regularly at shows. If this was true the clips would be all over YouTube. I haven't seen anything like that, have any of you? They all make mistakes every now and again, but there were not consistantly bad perfromances from Richie before the split - at least not while he was with the band. Afterwards, well, that's a different story.

Interestingly the comment is very similar to one that he has made about Alec in the past too, I believe.

I just have the feeling that this might just leave us with more questions and answers about this whole thing, once we see it, but let's see. From the breakdown of each show it seems that the whole third episodes is based around the Jon / Richie thing...

My personal opinion is Richie has been a sloppy guitar player since the turn of the century. I remember on the Crush DVD seeing things that were off and the quality was up and down thereafter. Although, I do not equate a general drop in quality to what Jon is suggesting. Especially when Jon has been on a similar arc and to a worse degree.

Jon is now suggesting that Richie was unable to play, and I think he is linking it to his addictions. Again, it is rich from Jon considering his own inability "to play" over the last decade. On this promotional cycle - which has been largely positive - Jon's insistence that "if I can't be 100% I won't do it" has been laughable.

Perhaps Jon is not letting go of the times when Richie was struggling, such as the MTV unplugged show. It is clear Jon struggles to let these things go, as we can see by is tired lines about "not turning up for work". Of course, Richie has had some disasters since leaving, perhaps Jon is referencing that.

I agree with you that I do not think this documentary will make anything clearer.