“He wanted the lion’s share of the money, to the point where it makes it not possible to even do it,” drummer Rikki Rockett reportedly said.

Poison singer Bret Michaels kills 40th anniversary tour by demanding 6 times bandmates’ shares, drummer says

"He wanted the lion’s share of the money, to the point where it makes it not possible to even do it," drummer Rikki Rockett reportedly said.

By Shania Russell

Shania Russell

Shania Russell is a news writer at *, *with five years of experience. Her work has previously appeared in SlashFilm and Paste Magazine.

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January 18, 2026 11:33 p.m. ET

Poison in Detroit in 1987 in 1987. Credit:

Ross Marino/Getty

Poison apparently won't be touring to celebrate their 40th anniversary after all.

The band has officially shelved plans to reunite for their highly-anticipated 40th anniversary, according to a new report from Page Six. Just as fans suspected, the rock band intended to reunite four decades after they first came together, but those plans hit a standstill thanks to a money dispute with lead singer Bret Michaels.

"We had a great offer, I thought. But we left the table,” drummer Rikki Rockett told the outlet in an article published Jan. 18. "It didn’t work."

Michaels wanted to earn 600 percent more than each of his bandmates, according to Page Six.

Rockett continued, "Really what it came to was C.C. [DeVille], Bobby [Dall], and I were all in, and I thought Bret was. But he wanted the lion’s share of the money, to the point where it makes it not possible to even do it. It’s like $6 to every one of our dollars. You just can’t work that way."

Bret Michaels of Poison performs in Fort Lauderdale in April 2024.

Jason Koerner/Getty

He added, “I don’t do this just for the money. I do have a love for this, absolutely. But at the same time, you don’t want to go out and work really hard just to make somebody else a bunch of money.”

Representatives for Michaels and Rockett did not immediately respond to 's request for comment.

While the tour was never officially announced, fans have been anticipating dates ever since Michaels floated the idea in a 2024 Facebook post, calling 2026 "the perfect" time to mark 40 years since *Look What the Cat Dragged In*. Though he stated that nothing was set in stone, he also wrote that a limited run of shows appealed to him.

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But no official announcement ever arrived, and in late 2025, Rockett hinted that plans for a tour had already imploded. During a conversation with Anthony Bryant on *The Hair Metal Guru* podcast, the drummer said there was an "awesome offer" on the table that was passed from him to DeVille to Dall, but that negotiations paused after the offer was handed to Michaels.

"We're at a point probably where I don't think we can get that tour to happen now," Rockett said in the November interview. "If by October you're not moving on a tour of that size [for the following summer], it's really, really hard to shoehorn that thing in and get it to happen. It's not impossible, but it's super, super hard."

Asked if he could personally reach out to Michaels to get an answer about the reunion tour, Rockett replied, "I *have* thrown out a text to all four members and said, 'Hey, let's figure this out. Let's do it.' And it was tumbleweeds. That's the kind of thing that is much bigger than just me throwing it out there on a text, 'cause there's a lot of money involved and stuff."

C.C. DeVille, Bret Michaels, Rikki Rockett, and Bobby Dall of Poison in Los Angeles in December 2019.

Emma McIntyre/Getty

Rockett then clarified that things are not tense, but "cordial" between the former bandmates.

"There's not all this hate going around Poison, it's not that. It's frustration," he said. "'Hey, we wanna do this.' 'You wanna do this then.' 'You wanna this now.' It's that kind of stuff."

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Poison, which formed in Pennsylvania in 1983, famously found success as one of the era's most popular rock bands. The band celebrated their first No. 1 hit single with "Every Rose Has Its Thorn," and gained acclaim for songs such as "Talk Dirty to Me," "I Won't Forget You," "Fallen Angel," and "Something to Believe In."

Speaking to the band's future, Rockett expressed hope that the group can figure out the money issue by next year, joking that it would be "a perfect Poison folly to do a 41st anniversary tour."**

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