Bret Michaels

Before he became an infamous reality television star, Bret Michaels was best known as the lead vocalist of Poison. The glam metal outfit found success after its 1986 debut album, Look What the Cat Dragged In, and Michaels would go on to write several of his most recognizable songs with Poison, including the 1988 power ballad "Every Rose has Its Thorn." Though Poison gained fame as one of the biggest glam rock bands of the 1980s and 1990s, Michaels split off from the band and began to pursue a solo career. He released his debut solo album A Letter from Death Row, the soundtrack for a 1998 movie of the same name that Michaels both directed and stared in, and spent the rest of the decade releasing country rock material. His solo career is largely overshadowed by his participation in the reality dating show Rock of Love with Bret Michaels, which aired in 2007 and continued for three seasons, leading the generation that missed his stint as a rock star to view him as a temporary reality television personality. Michaels continues to record and release new music, including his 2012 album, Get Your Rock On.