Celebrity Celebrity Relationships Celebrity Engagements Bret Michaels: No, I'm Not Engaged, Thank You "We're a work in progress," he says of his on-and-off girlfriend of 16 years By Stephen M. Silverman Stephen M. Silverman Stephen M. Silverman is the former founding editor of PEOPLE.com. He left PEOPLE in 2015. People Editorial Guidelines Published on July 14, 2010 08:50AM EDT Photo: Courtesy Kristi Gibson Don’t throw the rice just yet. After all he’s already been through this year, Bret Michaels isn’t ready to get married. Amid a supermarket-tabloid report of a reputed 4th of July engagement between the rocker and Kristi Lynn Gibson, his on-and-off girlfriend of 16 years – and mother of their two daughters, Raine Elizabeth, 10, and Jorja Bleu, 5 – Michaels put to rest any rumors of an impending marriage. “No. We are not engaged yet,” Michaels, 47, said on Wednesday’s CBS Early Show, promoting his new CD, Custom Built. “We’re a work in progress.” PHOTOS: Bret Michaels’s Rock ‘n’ Roll World Describing the ring that Gibson wears, Michaels called it “a promise ring … a friendship ring, with benefits. That’s what we call it.” As for how he feels these days, after his brain hemorrhage in April, the Celebrity Apprentice champ said, “It s been a little rough I’m very lucky to survive it. Very few people do.”