Jon Bon Jovi is playing down the drama surrounding a recent incident where he helped an apparently suicidal woman to safety.
He was shooting a music video in September when the unidentified woman was seen on the wrong side of a bridge guardrail in Nashville, seemingly preparing to jump into the Cumberland River below.
Video clips showed Bon Jovi approaching and talking to her. They eventually shared a hug. Then he and an assistant then aided her climb back over the rail, and Bon Jovi continued talking to her until emergency services arrived.
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“We’d all do the same,” Bon Jovi said during a recent onstage conversation with Stephen Colbert at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center in Newark.
He said the incident proves that mental health is a “real” issue. “This lady, she was completely coherent, had all of her wits,” Bon Jovi said. “She had said to me, ‘Look at me. I’m in paper scrubs with no shoes, no phone, no money, nowhere to go. They let me walk out of the hospital.’ … She said, ‘I am not suicidal or homicidal.”
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Bon Jovi agreed when Colbert noted that the woman was still in danger. “Obviously on the wrong side of the rail – in a situation,” Bon Jovi said. “I spoke with her, and then the wonderful police department, fire and emergency rescue came – and a therapist came and talked to her.”
The woman received further help after leaving the bridge, he confirmed. “But that’s all: I was just there,” Bon Jovi added.
Just after the incident, someone from the Bon Jovi camp reported that he’d received “extensive training in speaking with individuals experiencing a crisis” in connection with his JBJ Soul Foundation. Founded in 2006, the organization aims to tackle hunger, poverty and homelessness at community levels.
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Gallery Credit: Anthony Kuzminski
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