Tragic Details About Bruce Springsteen's Life

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Bruce Springsteen is one of the few people on the planet who always knew what they wanted to do. Speaking to The Times in 2024, The Boss shared that he had no doubt that he would become a musician because it was one of the few things he would always excel at. While many young people dream of playing sold-out shows and living the rockstar life, Springsteen would have been content living a simple life as a singer performing smaller gigs and barely making a living.

During a 2016 appearance on NPR's "Fresh Air," the "Born In The USA" hitmaker admitted that his big dream once seemed out of his reach because he didn't think he had the vocal chops for it. However, Springsteen didn't let his doubts deter him from his path and instead honed his songwriting skills so that he could move people with his words. Meanwhile, in an Esquire interview that same year, the prolific performer confirmed that music was more than a career for him since it also helped him heal from his tumultuous childhood. 

"I felt like a very, very empty vessel," Springsteen sadly confessed. "And it wasn't until I began to fill it up with music that I began to feel my own personal power and my impact on my friends and the small world that I was in." However, fame obviously wasn't without its caveats. During a 2025 chat with The Telegraph, Springsteen even disclosed that he had developed PTSD after his supposedly poor first performance in the UK. Over the years, the man who once rejected an unusual honor found himself similarly dealing with another mental health issue due to both the demands of fame and his troubled upbringing.

While speaking to Esquire in 2018, Bruce Springsteen detailed how he had his first mental breakdown after watching a fair in a small town when he was 32. Although the iconic rock star, who appeared in his first-ever commercial on Super Bowl Sunday in 2021, couldn't put into words why the happy sight made him feel so empty, Springsteen still noted, "All I do know is as we age, the weight of our unsorted baggage becomes heavier... much heavier." The "Born to Run" hitmaker recognized that the void in him stemmed from the realization that his childhood defensive mechanisms were preventing him from living a fulfilling life and negatively impacting his loved ones. 

In Springsteen's 2012 New Yorker interview, his pal and the biographer of "Two Hearts, the Story," Dave Marsh, pointed out that fame also affected his mental health, saying, "He was on a rocket ride, from nothing to something, and now you are getting your ass kissed day and night. You might start to have some inner conflicts about your real self-worth." The Grammy winner started his journey to healing shortly afterward by going to therapy, taking medication, and doing tons of inner work. 

In his own memoir, "Born To Run," the celebrated singer-songwriter further proved that healing wasn't linear by divulging that he had a second mental breakdown when he was 62. Springsteen explained that his inner turmoil was caused by the realization that he likely inherited generational trauma from his father's side of the family. Meanwhile, in a 2016 Vanity Fair interview, The Boss admitted that he was afraid his mental health issues would transform him into the person his father was.

If you or someone you know needs help with mental health, please contact the Crisis Text Line by texting HOME to 741741, call the National Alliance on Mental Illness helpline at 1-800-950-NAMI (6264), or visit the National Institute of Mental Health website.

Elsewhere in his sprawling 2018 Esquire interview, Bruce Springsteen opened up about his tumultuous relationship with his father, Doug Springsteen. "[I had] a gentleness, a timidity, shyness, and a dreamy insecurity," the "I'm On Fire" singer shared. "These were all the things I wore on the outside and the reflection of these qualities in his boy repelled [my father]. It made him angry." Bruce explained that he had picked up the qualities that his dad viewed as "weaknesses" from his mother. 

While speaking to The Telegraph in 2016, Bruce further elaborated that Doug would call him an "outcast weirdo misfit sissy boy" after he had one of his usual six packs of beer. The Grammy winner told Esquire that he crafted his macho public persona with his father in mind and even used his work clothes for it. Although Bruce knew that the personality wasn't his authentic self, he still adopted it in the hopes that Doug would at least approve of it, since this personality mimicked his own. 

Bruce explained to Vanity Fair in 2016 that Doug wasn't able to express the extent of his love to his children and could only respond with "Eh, me, too" when they told him they loved him. However, despite all the ups and downs in their relationship, Bruce and Doug eventually mended fences with a simple conversation that happened shortly before the rocker welcomed his first son with Patti Scialfa. While the father-son duo shared a beer, Doug helped his son heal by simply acknowledging his shortcomings, confessing, "Bruce, you've been very good to us. And I wasn't very good to you."

Around 1984, Bruce Springsteen struck up a romantic connection with Julianne Phillips, an actor and model who was notably 11 years his junior. After a short courtship, she walked down the aisle with the music icon at a private ceremony in Lake Oswego, in 1985. But Phillips filed for divorce after just three years of marriage, citing irreconcilable differences. Although the public remained interested in their split for years, the exes stayed firmly tight-lipped about the particulars of it.

As Oregon Live reported, the "Sisters" alum gave the final word on their relationship in a biography entitled simply "Bruce," sharing, "The one and only thing I will say is that the period was a time of incredible growth and introspection for me. And I will forever give that credit to Bruce." Meanwhile, in "Born To Run," Springsteen acknowledged that he had got married before he was emotionally ready for it. The Boss recalled that their relationship was greatly strained because he was under the mistaken impression that Phillips had only married him to boost her career. 

Eventually, Springsteen felt a romantic attraction to his E Street Band synthesizer player, Patti Scialfa. Once the Grammy winner realized that his affair with his bandmate was blossoming into something serious, he told Phillips he wanted to part ways and pleaded with her to keep his infidelity a secret. With hindsight, though, he knew he had handled the split "abysmally" since the media eventually learned about their affair, and his need for secrecy "made a tough thing more heartbreaking than necessary." Ultimately, Springsteen accepted, "I failed her as a husband and partner."

In September 2023, Bruce Springsteen announced that he unfortunately had to reschedule all of his performances for the coming year with the E Street Band because he was receiving treatment for peptic ulcer disease. In an episode of his SiriusXM show "From My Home to Yours" the following month, The Boss admitted that although he was taking a light-hearted approach to his health issues, he was in tremendous pain. Springsteen was undoubtedly great at hiding the severity of his condition because his bandmate Stevie Van Zandt told USA Today that even he "had no idea how much pain [Springsteen] was in." He also revealed the rocker played five shows while dealing with debilitating discomfort.

Meanwhile, when he appeared on Sirius XM's E Street Radio in March 2024, Springsteen confirmed that the condition prevented him from singing, sharing, "You sing with your diaphragm [...] My diaphragm was hurting so badly that when I went to make the effort to sing, it was killing me, you know?" (via Hello! magazine). Understandably, Springsteen was anxious about his career because he was unable to sing for about three months. 

Although the "Dancing in the Dark" hitmaker frequently asked his doctors for an update about when he would get his vocal talents back, they didn't have an answer for him initially. Thankfully, with a couple of months of rest, they were finally able to give Springsteen the green light to return to the stage. During an August 2024 show, The Boss was happy to announce that he had no intentions of walking away from touring anytime soon.

In the 2024 documentary "Road Diary: Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band," Bruce Springsteen's wife, Patti Scialfa, revealed that she had been diagnosed with myeloma, a blood cancer, in 2018. The synthesizer player had been unable to regularly attend their shows because her illness had impacted Scialfa's immunity. Speaking at a panel for the documentary's premiere, Springsteen sweetly shared that the diagnosis had helped him appreciate their tours far more. Moreover, Springsteen's wife's health issues also reframed his perspective on life as well. 

As the singer-songwriter shared, "Patti and I have had to deal with her illness, and you're worried about [...] It is a part of your life now, questions of mortality, and it just becomes a part of your life," (via People). According to the Daily Beast, the rocker's new perspective was also reflected in their Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band world tour. Although the group had gradually taken a more free-flowing approach to their shows in their decades-long history, Springsteen decided that their 2023 tour called for a more structured setlist centered around their 2020 release "Letter To You." 

Stevie Van Zandt, the band member Springsteen once had a fallout with, explained that their show and album dealt with mortality because the band members recognized they were getting older and wanted to make a significant impact while they still could. In a 2020 chat with the Associated Press, Springsteen disclosed that one of the songs on their setlist, "Last Man Standing," was written as a tribute to his bandmate in his teenage years, George Theiss, who passed away in 2018.