Was Meat Loaf's health really so bad that he collapsed on stage multiple times?
Who was the greatest loss of Meat Loaf's life?
And did this outgoing showman have trouble making friends offstage?
Meat Loaf was very open with the fact that he had a traumatic childhood, blaming a lot
of that on his father, Orvis Wesley Aday.
In 2013, he told The Big Issue,
"My dad was an alcoholic who would disappear for three or four days at a time."
During those times, Meat Loaf would often accompany his mother, Wilma Aday, when she'd
go looking for him at different bars.
What made matters much worse was that, according to Meat Loaf, Orvis was a violent drunk, who
frequently beat his young son.
Despite the abuse, Meat Loaf eventually forgave his dad, explaining to The Big Issue,
"Alcohol is a disease.
I don't hold a grudge and I love my father.
And I take responsibility for my own actions as an adult.
As far as I’m concerned, my dad has no part in my personality.
When I get mad it’s not my dad’s fault, it’s mine."
Meat Loaf had a strained relationship with his father not only because Orvis Wesley Aday
was an abusive alcoholic, but also because his dad apparently tried to kill him.
The rock star revealed that it happened when he was 18 after his mother's funeral, alleging
to Rolling Stone,
"I rolled off the bed just as he put that knife right in the mattress.
I fought for my life.
Apparently I broke three ribs and his nose, and left the house barefoot in a pair of gym
shorts and a T-shirt."
After that incident, though, the singer reportedly didn't see much reason to stay in Texas and
moved to Los Angeles to begin his music career.
If life at home wasn't bad enough for a young Meat Loaf, he didn't have it much easier at
school, where he was bullied by other kids for being overweight.
The rock star allegedly already weighed 240 lbs. by the time he hit 7th grade, recalling
to Rolling Stone in 2018, quote, "Oh, man, I was tormented."
Meat Loaf once told Blender Magazine about a commercial that supposedly ruined his life,
saying
"Levi's had a commercial on the radio that said, 'Poor fat Marvin can't wear Levi's.'
And I was fat.
It nearly destroyed me.
I'm still not over it.
... I've always been the poor fat Marvin that can't wear Levi's."
Eventually, in high school, Meat Loaf put his larger stature to good use by playing
football.
He told The Big Issue,
"At the age of 16 I was preoccupied with American football.
Because I got to hit people.
I took my anger out."
Unfortunately, Meat Loaf would continue to have problems with his weight for most of
his life, often fluctuating on different diets.
Meat Loaf was understandably devastated by the death of his mother, Wilma Aday, with
whom he had a close relationship.
He recalled to the Daily Mail,
"My mother taught English and I happened to be in her class.
She would say ... 'You've got to come to a higher standard than everyone else.'"
He also credited his mother for inspiring his love of music.
Sadly, Meat Loaf didn't have too many memories of her, telling The Big Issue,
"My mother was ill with breast cancer for so long, there's a lot of my childhood that
I've just blocked out."
His mother's death hit Meat Loaf hard.
He explained,
"My mother died when I was 18 and that's something — maybe a psychologist would help me deal
with that."
According to the late singer, Meat Loaf lived a life of danger.
He told The Telegraph in 2016
"I've fallen three stories, been in car wrecks, near misses, emergency landings so many times
I should have died."
One of those close calls in particular happened in his sophomore year of high school, when
he was supposedly hit in the head with a 12-pound shot put.
He recalled to Contact Music,
"There was no way anyone thought it would be tossed that far.
... But the guy who hit me was the champion of Dallas."
Rolling Stone reports that he often credited that injury with giving him his vocal prowess.
Meat Loaf also said that he'd, quote, "been in eight car wrecks."
One rollover crash left him especially shaken up, and he supposedly refused to sit in the
same seat he'd been in during that accident again.
But Meat Loaf apparently didn't have better luck with planes, either, as he related to
Ultimate Classic Rock,
"I've been in a plane that didn't have front landing gear when we came down.
I've been in a plane that lost its hydraulics on landing ... two other planes, one private
and one normal that the wind hit us so hard the wing hit the runway."
Meat Loaf had more than his fair share of serious health problems over the years before
he reportedly died from COVID-19 complications.
In 2011, he allegedly had a vocal cord hemorrhage after previously straining his voice years
earlier.
He told the Daily Mail,
"I always want to sing.
I had a swollen vocal cord and protruding blood vessels, so it was a struggle."
He got into more graphic detail with Contact Music, saying,
"I was spitting blood every night on stage.
... It was like ... you cut your finger really bad and it's bleeding everywhere, that's how
blood was coming out of my throat."
Then there were his back problems, which he said resulted in significant surgery.
He explained to the Mirror,
"The doctors said I had a little cyst but that it had grown and was pushing against
the nerves.
When the doctor opened up my back to remove it ... it was almost like ­emergency surgery.
There are now little nuts and bolts in there."
According to the Mirror, Meat Loaf's first onstage injury happened back in 1978, when
he jumped off a high platform during a show and broke his leg.
For the remainder of that particular tour, the musician used a wheelchair to move around
the stage.
There were also incidents where Meat Loaf would collapse during performances.
While performing in 2011, Meat Loaf ended up flat on his back after having an asthma
attack.
In 2016, it was "dehydration" that led Meat Loaf to faint once more mid-concert.
Despite his super successful "Bat Out of Hell" album in 1977, Meat Loaf had major financial
problems.
Things got so bad that, in the late 1980s, the rock legend had to declare bankruptcy.
He later revealed to the Daily Mail,
"Everyone thinks it made me rich and it's still humiliating because I declared bankruptcy
and everybody said, 'Oh, he's spent all his money,' but that wasn't the case."
He alleged,
"I made almost nothing.
... The record company said it never made a profit."
It also probably didn't help that, as Meat Loaf told The Guardian, at one point, he had
about 45 lawsuits against him, which amounted to $80 million.
In terms of why he kept getting sued, he explained that his record label and songwriting partner's
former manager were, quote, "playing games with him."
He explained,
"I had 45 lawsuits totalling $80m thrown at me, it was a game.
And the only way to stop them playing their game was to declare a chapter 11 bankruptcy.
Because every time we'd get one case dismissed, they'd throw another one at me.
And everybody thinks I had all this money but I didn't, because CBS did not pay my royalties
until 1997.
I got paid the royalties for Bat Out of Hell 20 years later.”
Being broke was hard on Meat Loaf and his family.
He recalled to Rolling Stone back in 1993,
"It was horrible.
The kids took a beating.
My wife would try to write a check at the grocery store, and they wouldn't take it."
Luckily, Meat Loaf was able to bounce back financially after his popular album, "Bat
Out of Hell II: Back Into Hell," dropped that same year.
While Meat Loaf had a complicated relationship with his songwriting partner, Jim Steinman,
he took his death very hard.
The two did have a few rifts, with Steinman telling Rolling Stone in 1993,
"I spent seven months trying to make a follow-up to 'Bat Out of Hell' with him, and it was
an infernal nightmare.
... He was pretty much losing his mind."
There were also multiple lawsuits between the two of them, but Meat Loaf insisted it
wasn't what it was made out to be in the press.
He dished,
"Our managers sued each other.
But my heart never sued Jim.
And I know Jim's heart never sued me."
That made it very painful for Meat Loaf to process Steinman's death from kidney failure
in 2021.
The singer admitted to the outlet,
"I don't want to die, but I may die this year because of Jim."
He continued to express how important their relationship was, saying,
"We belonged heart and soul to each other.
We didn't know each other.
We were each other."
Meat Loaf also took to Facebook to pay tribute to Steinman in his own way, posting a series
of photos of them together and writing,
"Coming here soon, My brother Jimmy.
Fly Jimmy Fly."
Music producer Pete Waterman also opened up about how Steinman's death impacted Meat Loaf,
saying on "Good Morning Britain"
"It's like when your partner does go it takes a part of you away."
"When you're a singer, you need a songwriter and if you can't write yourself, you look
for somebody.
Perfect team."
It seems that Meat Loaf didn't really have a lot of friends because of his career.
He revealed to The Irish News in 2020,
"I've worked my entire life so I didn't have time for friends, except for people I worked
with.
I didn't 'hang out' a lot."
His songwriting partner, Jim Steinman, was one of the few people that he was able to
connect with.
Meat Loaf told Rolling Stone the following year,
"I've always been with Jim and Jim has always been with me."
It also appears that the singer had high standards for others.
He told Classic Rock magazine,
"I want a person to take pride in his job.
… I will never be lazy a day in my life.
And I'm prepared to tell someone to their face if they are."
Additionally, Meat Loaf said he had social anxiety, telling the Regina Leader-Post in
2010 that because of that,
"I don't even go anywhere.
... I lead a boring life.
I never meet anybody much in a social situation because when I go into a social situation,
I have no idea what to do."
However, even when it came to some work events, Meat Loaf admitted,
"​​I'm so nervous, so scared.
... I don't want to walk down a red carpet."
Following Meat Loaf's rise to fame in the 1970s, the "Heaven Can Wait" singer initially
struggled with his rock star status.
According to The U.S. Sun, he'd overdo it to the point of needing oxygen following a
concert.
Offstage, he was living the typical rocker life, trashing hotel rooms and using hard
drugs.
Meat Loaf later reflected, quote, "I was the perfect monster."
That lifestyle, combined with a strained vocal cord issue, led Meat Loaf to eventually have
what he called an "emotional breakdown," for which he drank alcohol to cope.
As he explained in a 1993 interview with People,
"I didn't know how to deal with what was going on around me.
... I didn't want the responsibility anymore."
However, because of therapy and his supportive wife at the time, Leslie Edmonds, he eventually
felt "unbelievably happy," taking time away from the spotlight and moving to Connecticut.
Sadly though, Edmonds and Meat Loaf ended up divorcing in 2001 after 22 years of marriage.
While that was another tragic blow to the star, he found love again with Deborah Gillespie,
whom he was married to from 2007 up until his death.
She said in a statement to People,
"From the day we met, he was my world and I loved him."
If you or anyone you know is struggling with addiction issues, help is available.
Visit the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration website or contact
SAMHSA's National Helpline at 1-800-662-HELP (4357).