Jon Bon Jovi Dances with Daughter Stephanie During Performance of Song He Wrote for Her
Jon Bon Jovi‘s daughter Stephanie Rose Bongiovi was around 7 years old when she first joined her dad on stage to dance along with him for a performance of the track he wrote for her, “I’ve Got the Girl.”
Since then, Bon Jovi has often backed up performances of the tune with home video of their frontman’s little girl — giving fans a peek into their loving relationship.
But on Saturday, the rocker surprised the audience at Bon Jovi’s Las Vegas show with an appearance by a now 23-year-old Stephanie — who joined her dad on stage for another dance, 16 years later.
“Everybody’s got a little girl in their life,” Bon Jovi, 54, said halfway through the song. “Their daughter, their girlfriend, their wife, their mamma — it all goes by so fast. And they start out as little bitty babies and their future’s looking bright. And I wrote this song for that little baby, who’s now not such a little baby anymore.”
He then invited Stephanie out, to the cheers and awws of the audience.
The two danced together throughout the remainder of the song, with Bon Jovi occasionally stopping to strum the guitar.
“The truth is someday / Somebody is gonna take her (you see) / But the queen of hearts will always be / A five-year-old princess to me,” he sang in the song.
At the end of the set, they signaled the end of the song together with a jump before he embraced his daughter — giving her kiss after kiss on both cheeks.
“They’re a very close knit family,” a source told PEOPLE of their bond. “It’s beautiful to see how much they enjoy being together.”
The band hit the road earlier this month on their This House Is Not For Sale tour — named after their recently released album, which debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard charts.
They’ll next play the Los Angeles Forum for a show on March 8.
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And while the band has had decades in the spotlight, Bon Jovi himself has managed to remain quite humble. “I don’t know who that guy is,” he previously told PEOPLE when asked about the larger-than-life, leather-wearing rock star he’s perceived to be.
Who he really is, the star said, is a devoted family man from small-town New Jersey. That’s all thanks to the rock in his life, high school sweetheart wife of 27 years, Dorothea Hurley Bongiovi.
“She’s the glue,” Bon Jovi, 54, says of his wife and mother of their four children. “I’m the crazy visionary with all kinds of things flying, and the seams are all splitting. She’s the one following me with the glue and the thread and needle, keeping it all together.”
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