Millie Bobby Brown’s Eleven may be used to the Upside Down parallel universe of Stranger Things, but in real life it’s more like head-over-heels. The actress, who turns 20 this month, got engaged last April to Jake Bongiovi, who just happens to be the 20-year-old son of Jon Bon Jovi. The musician, who came to fame in the ‘80s with his eponymous rock band, apparently multiple weddings happening this year, and he had some jokes about the cost of Brown and Bongiovi’s upcoming nuptials.
As the man behind power ballads like “Livin’ on a Prayer” and “Always,” Jon Bon Jovi knows a thing or two about love. Heck, he’s been married to his high school sweetheart, Dorothea Hurley Bongiovi, since 1989. So when he was asked by E! News about the chances that he might play double duty at Millie Bobby Brown’s wedding as both father of the groom and wedding singer, Bon Jovi joked about the financial upside to that idea, saying:
It would be a nice way to recoup some of the money that it's costing me for one, two, three weddings this year. They've all got great partners and we're looking forward to it.
Wow, three weddings in one year?! While he didn’t go into detail about the multiple separate ceremonies he'll be footing the bill for in 2024, Jon Bon Jovi previously mentioned in an interview with Andy Cohen on Radio Andy that three of his four children were currently engaged.
Jesse Bongiovi, 28, reportedly proposed to girlfriend Jesse Light in 2022, and Bon Jovi and his wife also share daughter Stephanie, 30, and son Romeo, 19. So it seems most likely that the three weddings will actually be for three different children, rather than Millie Bobby Brown and Jake Bongiovi celebrating with multiple ceremonies a la Kourtney Kardashian or Jennifer Lopez.
Jon Bon Jovi may have jokes, but the happiness in his voice when he spoke about the Stranger Things actress and his son suggested that celebrating the young couple as they start their lives together is priceless. He said of their relationship:
They're growing together. They're madly in love and we love them both for that. It's an exciting adventure.
When Millie Bobby Brown revealed her engagement to the world — using a Taylor Swift lyric in her announcement, naturally — plenty of people on the Internet had thoughts about how strange it was to see her reach such a big milestone after growing up in front of our eyes on TV. Some suggested that 19 was too young to be taking such a leap, but Jon Bon Jovi didn’t see it that way.
He opened up about son Jake’s engagement, saying It’s about finding the right person more than being any specific age, and he had only glowing things to say about his future daughter-in-law, calling her and her family “wonderful,” and saying his son is “very, very lucky.”
Weddings can be expensive, sure, but if Jon Bon Jovi did decide to save a few bucks by forgoing a band or DJ and just taking on the job himself, I’m sure there wouldn’t be very many complaints. Either way, it looks like Millie Bobby Brown will be a married woman before Stranger Things Season 5 premieres, so in the meantime, you can rewatch the first four installments of the sci-fi horror with a Netflix subscription, or check out everything new and coming soon to Netflix.
