Why Jon Bon Jovi erased Buffalo and the Bills from his life
The Bills Mafia shouldn’t lose any sleep over this. Jon Bon Jovi told British GQ he will never go back to Buffalo.
Years ago, Bon Jovi and others groups, including now-President Donald Trump, made a futile bid to buy the Buffalo Bills.
The story is retold in the British edition of the magazine entitled, Jon Bon Jovi: “I will never go back to Buffalo, New York.”
The rock star has a storied history with Donald Trump. In 2018 it was reported that the American president schemed to keep Bon Jovi from buying the American football team Buffalo Bills in 2014. Allegedly Trump had also been interested in buying the Bills, but he knew he would be unable to outbid Bon Jovi and his Toronto-based partners, so he hired Republican operative Michael Caputo, and they incited a grassroots campaign to turn the people of Buffalo against him.
A group of activists called “12th Man Thunder” sprung up and began establishing “Bon Jovi-free zones” in the city, with Caputo pulling the strings from behind the scenes. Radio DJs in the city refused to play his songs on air.
A large part of the scheme involved convincing the fans that Bon Jovi and his partners intended to move the team to Canada, which Bon Jovi strenuously denies. “I can tell you, I swear to you on a stack of Bibles, because I had to have this hardy conversation with the two partners: ‘We’re not gonna get this unless we keep this here,’” he says, recalling the incident, which he calls “one of the biggest disappointments” of his life. “We never saw it coming. I was calling the town councilman, telling him, ‘I’m moving to Buffalo, New York!’”
Bon Jovi’s group didn’t get the team, and neither did Trump. Terry Pegula, a local businessman won.
“We showed up with a billion three, sitting there with a cheque. And we could have easily bought it at any price,” Bon Jovi said. “We didn’t get to get back in the room. [Pegula] said, ‘What do I have to do to not leave this table without owning the team?’”
And the, um, kicker:
The end result still stings, Bon Jovi said. “I won’t ever go back to the city of Buffalo. You will never see my face in Buffalo ever. I have knocked it off the map.”
Bon Jovi’s loss is Buffalo’s gain.
