MÖTLEY CRÜE frontman Vince Neil has opened up about the frightening health struggles he has faced over the last several years, revealing that he actually suffered multiple strokes before the major one that nearly forced him into permanent retirement from the stage.
Speaking on the September 24 episode of Trunk Nation With Eddie Trunk on SiriusXM, Neil detailed how his most recent stroke struck on Christmas night 2024. “It was Christmas night, and I went to sleep. I woke up and I couldn’t get out of bed,” he revealed (as transcribed by Blabbermouth). “I’m, like, ‘What’s going on?’ And 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. 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. 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. I wasn’t ready to be back on stage yet. It was really sad, but it’s really worth it now, ’cause I can get on stage and sing and all that good stuff.”
When discussing the cause of his stroke, Vince added: “Well, they said that I had a blood clot in my leg that ran up through to my brain. And they showed me — I had a neurologist come out and they took x-rays and stuff, and you see I had scars in my brain. [And they said], ‘See that’s where you had a stroke.'”
Doctors later confirmed that Neil had actually endured four strokes over the years, two of which he didn’t even realize at the time.
“Well, they said that I had a blood clot in my leg that ran up through to my brain,” he said. “And they showed me — I had a neurologist come out and they took x-rays and stuff, and you see I had scars in my brain. [And they said], ‘See that’s where you had a stroke.'”
The December health scare forced MÖTLEY CRÜE to postpone their planned Las Vegas residency at Dolby Live at Park MGM and cancel several festival appearances. At the time, the band only cited a “medical procedure,” leaving fans in the dark until Neil decided it was time to speak out.
“I just said, ‘Let’s just say it’s a medical thing happening and I had to cancel,’ let people figure out what they wanted,” Vince said about why he kept his condition under wraps. “But then I decided that it was probably time to tell people what it was. And so I had an interview with John [Katsilometes of the Las Vegas Review-Journal], and so I told him. And that went everywhere. It was crazy.”
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