"Some people just court celebrity for the sake of it," he says, his smile lapsing into a sneer. "People like Tom Cruise. He was always a great actor, but I think the man's lost it, lost it. You won't ever catch me jumping up and down on Oprah going on about how I love this woman. And then others start feeding off it. Suddenly, Kate Moss is on the covers of magazines."
Wasn't Kate Moss always on the covers of magazines? Does he mean Katie Holmes? "Yeah, her," he says. "These people claim they hate the intrusion that fame brings but then they bring it on themselves by having huge entourages everywhere they go, attracting attention to themselves. It's a great fallacy. Another one's Paris Hilton. Famous for being infamous. And the people who should be getting the attention, people like Bob Dylan, aren't. It's sad."
As for politics:
Another thing Bon Jovi is sad about is the current political climate in America. He campaigned for Al Gore and John Kerry, hoping to "make a difference", but says he ended up feeling disillusioned. Kerry's defeat in the recent US elections inspired Bon Jovi's latest album (his ninth).
"I wrote the album during a time of extreme polarisation in America. There was a war happening and it was dividing families. I realised the party that I was working for had lost but that we still had to come forward together as a nation. You can't be a sore loser. Hence the album title Have A Nice Day.
"What drew me to politics in the first place was the fact that I wanted to have a place to take a stand and use my voice to express what I believed in. But I've no longer got any political aspirations. I feel that as a politician, 50 per cent of people would hate you before you even left the house. And I've never quite known what motivates politicians. Do they really believe in the cause that strongly or is it just the pursuit of power?
He even showed a little bit of a sense of humor:
"I once flew on a small plane with Bill Clinton," he continues, with a grin. "And a reporter asked whose job was better, mine or the President's? I said that mine was, because I get to keep the plane and the house."
