Before the start of Mötley Crüe’s Las Vegas residency earlier this month, Vince Neil revealed that the band was forced to push the beginning of the run because he had a stroke in December. Well, now, the Mötley frontman has shared that he actually suffered at least four strokes “throughout the years” — and this last one may just have been the worst.
“Two of ’em I didn’t even know I had. One of ’em was a mini stroke that happened, and I just lost feeling in my hand. And that was it,” he told Eddie Trunk on SiriusXM’s Trunk Nation. “And I got over that pretty quickly. But then this last one, it was a big one.”
Neil said doctors were able to discover that he had suffered the other strokes because they had “scarred right around the same spot” and that there were four scars in his brain due to strokes. The last of the health scares really affected Neil’s mobility, and he was forced to learn to walk again.
“My left leg wouldn’t work, and my left arm wouldn’t work. So I had to get help out of bed. I couldn’t push myself up to get myself comfortable in bed. And I had to have help,” he said. “And slowly but surely, the sensation came back in my legs. And I had to learn to walk again. I went from a wheelchair to a walker to a cane to — I can walk now, but for five months it was just off and on, not knowing what’s gonna happen.”
He continued: “And the doctor said that I probably wouldn’t be on stage again. And I was, like, ‘No, man. I can’t do that.’ And so I just tried. I worked my butt off to get back in shape to go on stage. And I was really sad to have to cancel those shows, but I just wasn’t ready yet.”
Back in March, Neil had shared that the band — which he comprises with Tommy Lee, Nikki Sixx, and new guitarist John 5 — would push back the residency from March to September over a vocal procedure. “My health is my top priority so I can bring you the awesome shows you deserve, and I can’t wait to return to the stage,” Neil said in a statement at the time. However, the health issue was much more serious.
To the Las Vegas Review-Journal, Neil explained that he did physical therapy for months in Nashville before being able to rehearse. While his voice wasn’t affected, “It takes a while to get your brain to start moving your legs, for them to do what your brain wants to do. You try to walk, but it doesn’t come out right,” he explained, adding that he’s around 95 percent back to “where I was before.”
Mötley Crüe: The Las Vegas Residency kicked off at Dolby Live at Park MGM in Las Vegas earlier this month. They have shows scheduled on Sept. 26 and 27, before two October shows on Oct. 1 and 3.
