VINCE NEIL Reveals He Had Three Strokes Before The 'Big One': 'Two Of 'Em I Didn't Even Know I Had'

During an appearance on today's (Wednesday, September 24) episode of SiriusXM's "Trunk Nation With Eddie Trunk", MÖTLEY CRÜE frontman Vince Neil discussed his recent revelation that he had suffered a stroke last December. A couple of months after the health scare, the band announced that its residency at Sin City's Dolby Live at Park MGM — originally set to run March 28 through April 19 — had been delayed until September. At the time, MÖTLEY CRÜE's statement said only that the singer required a "medical procedure." The CRÜE also canceled May's planned performance at Maryland's Boardwalk Rock festival.

Regarding how he found out he had a stroke, Vince told "Trunk Nation" (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "It was Christmas night, and I went to sleep. I woke up and I couldn't get out of bed. 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."

Asked by host Eddie Trunk if he knew right away that he had suffered a stroke, Vince said: "Well, Rain [Vince's then-girlfriend] has an aunt who's a nurse, and she called her aunt, and she said, 'This is what's going on with Vince,' and [her aunt] goes, 'He's had a stroke.' And by then it was just too late to go to the hospital because you have to get [there] within, like, 12 hours or something. And I was just kind of, like, 'Oh, it's gonna go away. It's gonna go away.' … I thought, 'Oh, well, it'll come back in a little bit.' But it didn't. Yeah, that was the hard part. Then I went to the hospital. They said I had a stroke, and they go, 'We can't do anything for you now because you've already had it and you've gone past that time' where they give you this drug — it makes it so you're not numb on the side."

Regarding what caused his stroke, Vince said: "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.'"

Neil went on to say that his father "died of a stroke" back in March 2021. "I moved him to Nashville, right down the street from my house," he explained. "And he was pretty bad. He couldn't talk. It was really sad. And he had to have a helper help him, and had to have a motorized wheelchair and stuff. He fought through it, but the stroke just took him out."

As for what Neil's post-stroke recovery entailed, Vince said: "Lots of physical therapy. At first I went to a place for 10 days in Nashville, and they worked with me at the very beginning to get back the memory stuff that I have. And then I just hired a physical therapist to go to my house every day. And he was a physical therapist that does football players and stuff like that. So he had me running and doing the things on the ladder, the ladder on the floor, running those back and forth, doing massages, my hand, my arm. But he brought all of it back. He got me through all this."

Vince revealed that he found out from the doctors that he had actually had "four strokes throughout the years. Two of 'em I didn't even know I had," he said. "One of 'em was a mini stroke that happened and I just lost feeling in my hand. And that was it. And I got over that pretty quickly. But then this last one, it was a big one."

Asked by Trunk how the doctors knew that Neil had the other strokes in the past, Vince said: "Because they could see it in your brain. It's scarred right around the same spot. I had four scars in my brain, and the neurologist said those are all strokes."

Vince added that he only learned now that he had some of the other strokes. "I can't remember any other time I felt weird or something," he said. "It must have happened and I got over it. I didn't even know it."

As for when he made the decision to return to the live stage, Vince said: "I had these concerts lined up, with the solo band too, which I canceled. And then I went back and tried to do three [solo] shows [in August]. And those were all right, but I should have canceled those too. But I wasn't a hundred percent ready to go back out on stage. It was a little too early for me, and I just thought, 'I've gotta get myself together more.' And I'm 95 percent good right now. I'd like to get that other 5 percent… I really wanted to get ready for [the MÖTLEY CRÜE residency]. There's things that I can't do on stage still. It's hard to run back and forth on that stage. That stage is so huge. But I'm getting used to it."

Neil also addressed the fact that MÖTLEY CRÜE didn't disclose the exact nature of his health setback until he told the Las Vegas Review-Journal that he had suffered a stroke while asleep on Christmas night, and woke up the next day unable to get up.

"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 of the decision to keep 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."

Prior to Vince's August 1, 2025 concert at the MGM Music Hall at Fenway in Boston, Massachusetts with his solo band, Neil hadn't performed live since hitting the stage with MÖTLEY CRÜE in October 2024 at the Aftershock festival in Sacramento, California.

The new show dates for MÖTLEY CRÜE's Las Vegas residency at Dolby Live at Park MGM will take run through October 3. Tickets from the original dates will remain valid for the newly announced dates.

The CRÜE's third Vegas residency is being billed as a "tell-all show [that] will immerse the audience in the band's history, leading all the say through their record-breaking 'Stadium Tour'." They previously set up shop in Vegas in 2012 for "Mötley Crüe Takes On Sin City" and in 2013 for "Evening In Hell".

In October 2024, MÖTLEY CRÜE released a new EP, "Cancelled". Produced by Bob Rock, the EP marked the band's first release with Big Machine and included three new tracks: Top 5 Rock Radio hit "Dogs Of War" a cover of the BEASTIE BOYS' "Fight For Your Right" and the title track, "Cancelled".

This past February, Neil's Learjet aircraft was involved in a collision in Scottsdale. Vince was not on his jet when it collided with another plane in the fatal incident, leaving one dead and several hospitalized.

John 5 joined MÖTLEY CRÜE in the fall of 2022 as the replacement for the band's co-founding guitarist Mick Mars. Mick announced his retirement from touring with MÖTLEY CRÜE in October 2022 as a result of worsening health issues.