If every rose truly has its thorn, then Poison lead singer and VH1 reality star Bret Michaels has done a bang-up job of making his life look downright thornless.

The glam metal superstar and his band hit it big with their 1986 debut, which sold 2 million copies, and a follow-up that sold 8 million on the strength of the hit, "Every Rose Has Its Thorn."

But while Poison reveled in money, babes and all the accoutrements of rock stardom, one aspect of their lives made them even more wildly successful than die-hard fans realized -- the wisdom to keep their publishing, which is where the real big money lies.

Poison has had its ups and downs -- not to mention some onstage knock-down, drag-outs -- but the band still tours, and draws big crowds, consistently. For Michaels, that success has been compounded of late by VH1's "Rock of Love with Bret Michaels," a show in which Michaels dates 20 attractive, rock-god-worshipping women, in an effort to find his one true love -- or, failing that, the most fun two or three.

Last season failed to produce the love of his life. The season's winner, Jess, said on the reunion show that Bret made a mistake by picking her, so Michaels is at it again, with a selection of 20 new lovelies aching for his attention every Sunday at 9 p.m. on VH1. Bankrate spoke to Michaels about the show, the band, their finances and how his incredible success has given him something to believe in.

Bankrate: That reunion show was harsh. What went down with Jess?

Bret Michaels: I can make it pretty simple. No one really sat either one of us down to explain how reality TV actually ends.

When the show ended -- I wish I could show you this -- there's a song Faith Hill did called "When the Lights Go Down." When you finish and you're standing there, the crew started packing stuff up, and I looked at Jess and said, "Are we finished? Do we grab some clothes, get in the car and go get a bite to eat?" And all of a sudden the producers came out and said, "Now you both understand that you won't be able to see each other for a while. We can't have anyone snapping a bunch of pictures of you guys out running around, because as soon as the show takes off someone will bring one of those pictures up on the Net, and our show's over."

So it was explained that there's a four- to six-month period where you can't hang out together and have a real relationship. So for both of us that was kind of strange. At the reunion, it came out that she was pretty upset about the way it worked, and she had moved on with her life, as did I. This year, I'm much more aware of it, and even though the producers didn't tell all the girls, I was very open from day one about how it works. I don't want them having the jolt that I had.