Jon Bon Jovi shares about the ups and downs of his 37 years with his wife, Dorothea Bongiovi.

Jon Bon Jovi on 37th Wedding Anniversary with Wife Dorothea: ‘I Got It Right the First Time’

Bon Jovi will kick off their Forever tour on July 7 in N.Y.C.

They give love a good name!

Jon Bon Jovi and his wife Dorothea celebrated their 37th wedding anniversary in April.

“It’s 37 years now and together 46. It’s a long time!” the rocker — who will hit the road for the band’s Forever tour on July 7 — says in this week’s PEOPLE cover story.

The pair tied the knot on April 29, 1989 and share four children, Stephanie, 33, Jesse, Jake, 24, and Romeo, 22. Dorothea has stood by the Grammy winner’s side throughout his career’s highs and lows, from the band’s launch to fame with 1986’s Slippery When Wet to his vocal cord issues in 2022.

Jon Bon Jovi and wife Dorothea Bongiovi at their 1989 wedding in Las Vegas.

At the time, she gave Bon Jovi tough love after a concert, which led to him undergoing a vocal cord medialization to repair a strained vocal cord.

When she heard him sing again at a rehearsal this spring, “she said, ‘It’s so damn good that people are going to think you recorded it.’ That’s the girl who told me the truth and said, ‘It’s not good.’ So that was a nice compliment because compliments aren’t free around here,” Bon Jovi, 64, says of his wife, 63.

Together they launched the Jon Bon Jovi Soul Foundation in 2006, which just won the James Beard Foundation Impact Award for the charity restaurants it operates via the JBJ Soul Kitchens.

“Giving back was always important, but doing it through food, which we realized many, many years ago, you didn’t need a scientist to find the cure. She created the model of the restaurants, which now we have four and we’re about to do a fifth. Her great dream is that we’ll go out of business, but unfortunately we never will,” Bon Jovi says.

“It’s thriving, and we’re expanding into different areas, whether it’s finding people housing or getting expungements done yesterday. Forty-five people were expunged with their criminal records because of the Soul Kitchen. We’re getting them housing and jobs. That’s happening because of the Soul Kitchen.”

Jon Bon Jovi at home in Florida on April 12, 2026.Michael Schwartz

Last year, Bon Jovi became a grandfather twice over. His middle son, Jake, 24, and daughter-in-law, Stranger Things actress Millie Bobby Brown, 22, announced in August that they had adopted a baby girl, then his oldest son Jesse, 31, and his wife, Jesse, 32, welcomed a daughter in November.

“Papa’s a giddy, goofy grandfather,” Bon Jovi says of his new nickname as a grandpa, “Papa Jon.”

Before hitting the road for the Forever tour, the rock icon has been relishing time with his family, especially now that he’s an empty nester.

Jon Bon Jovi on the cover of the June 29, 2026 issue of PEOPLE.Michael Schwartz

“No one warns you about these chapters in life because then they have their own schedules and the process and you’re no longer the boss of anything, but you get them together when you can and we have as much time whenever, wherever we can, but they’re all grown now,” he says.