Bret Michaels

Bret's great-uncle Nick Sychak fought at Omaha Beach in the Invasion of Normandy and was killed in action in France in 1944.

At the age of 6, Michaels fell ill, and during a three-week stay in the hospital, he was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes.

Michaels began playing the guitar as a teenager, forming a band with drummer Rikki Rockett, bass player Bobby Dall and guitarist David Besselman.

Bret Michael Sychak (born March 15, 1963), known professionally as Bret Michaels, is an American singer and musician.

He is the frontman of rock band Poison who has sold over 65 million albums worldwide and 30 million records in the United States.

The band has also charted 10 singles to the Top 40 of the Billboard Hot 100, including six Top 10 singles and a number-one single, "Every Rose Has Its Thorn".

Michaels was born Bret Michael Sychak on March 15, 1963, to Wally and Marjorie Sychak, north of Pittsburgh in the town of Chicora, Pennsylvania, and grew up in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania.

He attended Mechanicsburg Area Senior High School.

He has two sisters, Michelle and Nicole.

He claims that his parents had originally intended for him to have the middle name "Maverick", after the title character in the popular James Garner TV Western series Maverick.

He is of Carpatho-Rusyn (from his paternal grandfather), Irish, English, German, and Swiss descent.

Throughout the 1980s and early 1990s, Poison became one of the biggest glam metal bands in the world, recording their second album, the multi-platinum selling Open Up and Say... Ahh!, and their third album, the multi-platinum selling Flesh & Blood.

Shortly thereafter, Besselman left the band due to creative differences and in 1983 the band hired Matt Smith to form a new band named Paris in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania.

In early 1984 the band tired of playing the Pennsylvania bar circuit, changed their name to Poison and moved west to Los Angeles to seek fame on the Sunset Boulevard scene.

That same year, Michaels met 16-year-old Tracy Lewis, who would become both his girlfriend and the muse for one of his most memorable songs.

Eventually, Matt Smith tired of the band's struggle to find fame and returned home.

He was replaced by C.C. DeVille, who would become both Michaels' friend and a source of conflict.

Local publicity about the band eventually led to a record deal with Enigma Records, and their first album, Look What the Cat Dragged In.

The album was not a great success until 1987, when Michaels convinced the band to film a video for their song, "Talk Dirty to Me".

The album went platinum, and the band became famous.

In March of that year, Poison headlined a show at Madison Square Garden.

Michaels took his insulin injection before the show but was so nervous about performing that he neglected to eat.

Several songs into Poison's set, Michaels went into insulin shock and collapsed onstage.

When subsequent media reports alleged that Michaels collapsed due to a drug overdose, Michaels publicly announced that he was a diabetic.

1987 also saw the dissolution of his relationship with Lewis, who felt that fame had changed him.

Though Michaels contends that Lewis was unfaithful to him, Lewis (now Lewis Crosby) insists that it was Michaels who was unfaithful.

Michaels was inspired by the breakup to write "Every Rose Has Its Thorn", explaining that the rose represented his fame and success, whereas the loss of his relationship represented the thorn.

The song was released as a power ballad single in December 1988, and is regarded as "the ultimate '80s anthem about heartbreak".

However, their lives were characterized by the escalating tension between Michaels and DeVille that derived from their mutual drug use, which came to a head during their 1990/91 "Flesh and Blood" world tour.

In the mid-1990s, after a night of partying, Michaels came close to dying when he crashed his Ferrari into a telephone pole.

He incurred serious injury, including broken ribs, a disfigured nose, and lost teeth.

Also cited is the spectacle of DeVille's behavior during the 1991 MTV Video Music Awards.

After getting into a fistfight with Michaels, DeVille left the band, and descended further into addiction.

Poison went on with new guitarist Richie Kotzen recording the Gold album Native Tongue and then with guitarist Blues Saraceno recording the album Crack a Smile... and More!.

Besides his career as frontman, he has several solo albums to his credit, including the soundtrack album to the 1998 film A Letter from Death Row in which Michaels starred, wrote and directed, and a rock album, Songs of Life, in 2003.

Michaels has appeared in several films and TV shows, including as a judge on the talent show Nashville Star which led to his country influenced rock album Freedom of Sound in 2005.

He starred in the hit VH1 reality show Rock of Love with Bret Michaels and its sequels, which inspired his successful solo album Rock My World.

He was also the winning contestant on NBC's reality show Celebrity Apprentice 3 and also featured in his own reality docuseries Bret Michaels: Life As I Know It, which inspired his highest-charting album as a solo artist, Custom Built, reaching No. 1 on Billboard's Hard Rock chart.

He is also known for hosting on the Travel Channel.

In 2006, Hit Parader ranked Michaels at No. 40 on their list of greatest heavy metal singers of all-time.