Jon Bon Jovi—global rock icon, stadium-filling legend, and the voice of a generation. His name is synonymous with anthems like “Livin’ on a Prayer” and “Wanted Dead or Alive,” and his career has spanned sold-out tours, Hollywood cameos, and induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. But behind all the platinum records and screaming crowds, there’s one three-minute video that Jon Bon Jovi wishes would vanish forever. A relic from 1987, this music video is so cringe-inducing, so awkward, that the superstar himself admits he’d rather “relive his worst night on tour” than sit through it ever again.

What could possibly be so bad that the man who conquered the world with his swagger and smile refuses to watch it? The answer is a bizarre, neon-lit artifact from his band’s earliest days—a video that, despite launching Bon Jovi’s meteoric rise, remains a personal nightmare for its reluctant star.

It all began in the early ‘80s, when a young John Francis Bongiovi Jr. was hustling through the New Jersey club scene, dreaming of rock stardom. His demo for “Runaway”—a synth-driven anthem about a rebellious girl—caught fire on local radio, and suddenly, the labels came calling. Mercury Records wanted to strike while the iron was hot, and that meant one thing: a music video, fast. But Jon was just a kid, new to the business and powerless against the label’s army of producers, stylists, and directors. He had no creative control, no say in the vision. He was told what to wear, how to act, and where to stand. The result? A video that looks less like a rock classic and more like a low-budget sci-fi student film gone horribly wrong.

Directed by Mike Qua—who would later find success in television but was still cutting his teeth on music videos—the “Runaway” clip is a fever dream of neon lights, robotic dancers, and abstract, confusing imagery. The plot, such as it is, tries to follow a troubled young woman escaping a toxic home, but the execution is pure 1980s cheese: strobe lights, metallic sets, awkward choreography, and a brooding Jon Bon Jovi in tight leather, sporting hair so big it deserves its own zip code. The band, barely formed at this point, looks like a group of strangers who wandered onto the set by accident. Richie Sambora, Jon’s soon-to-be right-hand man, wasn’t even officially in the band yet. Session musicians fill the gaps, and the chemistry that would later define Bon Jovi is nowhere to be found.

Jon himself has never minced words about his feelings. In a rare, brutally honest interview, he scoffed at the suggestion of revisiting his earliest videos: “I’d rather be tied to a chair and forced to relive my worst night on tour than sit through that thing again. It was so embarrassing.” For Jon, the video is a painful reminder of a time when he was just a face on a screen, powerless to shape his own story. “They told us to show up, wear these clothes, and just look intense. I didn’t even know what we were filming half the time,” he later admitted.

The embarrassment only grew when “Runaway” was re-released in 1987, riding the tidal wave of Bon Jovi’s global superstardom after “Slippery When Wet” exploded onto the charts. Suddenly, a new generation of fans—used to the confident, charismatic Jon Bon Jovi—were being introduced to a stiff, wide-eyed rookie blinking through a haze of bad lighting and worse direction. MTV dug up the video for retrospectives, and late-night TV played it as a “look how far they’ve come” gag. Jon cringed every time it aired. “We were already light years ahead by then, and that video felt like a relic I didn’t want to carry around,” he said.

It’s no accident that the “Runaway” video is almost never included in official Bon Jovi retrospectives, box sets, or documentaries. It’s a ghost—whispered about by diehard fans, meme’d by internet jokers, but quietly buried by the band itself. Yet, it lingers on YouTube, where curious fans dig it up like an old yearbook photo: fascinating, mortifying, and oddly endearing all at once.

So why does Jon Bon Jovi hate it so much? It’s not just the bad hair and awkward acting. It’s what the video represents: the loss of artistic control, the vulnerability of a young musician out of his depth, and the discomfort of having his most awkward moment immortalized for the world to see. That early experience, he later admitted, was a “baptism by fire”—a lesson in the cutthroat realities of the music business. “That video taught me what it meant to fight for your art. I never wanted to be just a face on a screen again.”

And fight he did. As Bon Jovi’s career skyrocketed, Jon became obsessed with authenticity and creative control. He handpicked directors, sat in on storyboarding sessions, and insisted on having a say in everything from wardrobe to narrative. The difference is obvious: later videos like “Livin’ on a Prayer,” “Wanted Dead or Alive,” and “Always” are cinematic, emotional, and unmistakably “Bon Jovi.” The band became known for their visual storytelling as much as their music, a far cry from the neon-lit mess of “Runaway.”

Yet, for all its flaws, the “Runaway” video is still a cult classic among fans. “Yeah, the video is goofy, but that’s part of its appeal,” wrote one commenter on a Bon Jovi forum. “It’s Bon Jovi before the fame, before the polish. Just honest young rockers trying to make it.” Some even call it a “charming relic,” a snapshot of rock’s wild, experimental MTV era. Music historians agree: “Videos like these are a window into the formative years of rock bands,” says critic Laura Jenkins. “They’re raw, they’re flawed, but they capture the youthful ambition of their creators.”

For Jon Bon Jovi, though, it will always be the one video he can’t bear to watch—a reminder of how far he’s come, and how much he had to learn. As he once said, “Everyone’s got that one yearbook photo they hate. This one just happened to be on TV.”

**So, is the “Runaway” video really that bad? Or is it a piece of rock history worth celebrating, warts and all? Watch it if you dare—and decide for yourself. Just don’t expect Jon Bon Jovi to join you.**