Eddie Van Halen, the guitar virtuoso and eponymous co-founder of legendary rock group Van Halen,
died on Oct. 6, 2020. With his passing came an outpouring of love from his family, collaborators,
and fans. The rock icon was clearly beloved, but also beset with more than his share of tragedies.
Eddie Van Halen wasn't even a teenager when he picked up his first drink.
In an interview with Billboard, he said,
"I started drinking and smoking when I was 12. I got drunk before I'd show up to high school."
He was drinking so much that his ninth-grade science teacher could actually smell the
alcohol on him and confronted him - but his message wasn't what you might expect.
He said,
"He told me, 'Don't drink anything you can't see through. [...] And I was like,
'So, vodka?' And he said 'Yeah.' Which was great, because that was my drink."
The rocker wasn't reprimanded at home either.
He said,
"I'm not blaming my father at all, but he was an alcoholic, too. [...] So in our household, it was
normal. But it never affected his work, although, I guess it didn't affect my work, either."
And although he might not be to blame,
Van Halen's dad certainly didn't discourage his son from relying on alcohol when things got tough.
In a 2012 interview with Esquire, he said, quote, "the whole alcoholism thing" started
because he was a shy kid struggling with getting up on stage to perform.
He said,
"I don't mean to blame my dad, but when I started playing in front of people, I'd get
so damn nervous. [...] I asked him, 'Dad, how do you do it?' That's when he handed me the cigarette
and the drink. And I go, 'Oh, this is good! It works!' For so long, it really did work."
From the release of Van Halen's self-titled debut album in 1978, the California-based band went
through more incarnations than most. But whether it was David Lee Roth on vocals, or Sammy Hagar,
or even Gary Cherone, the one constant was Eddie Van Halen's attraction to drugs and alcohol.
In a 2015 interview with Billboard, Van Halen admitted,
"I was an alcoholic, and I needed alcohol to function."
But his addiction had nothing to do with the rock 'n' roll lifestyle. Instead, he relied on vodka
and cocaine to help him write. While the rest of the band went out celebrating after each gig,
the legendary musician would head back to his hotel room and try to work, in his own unique way.
He said,
"I didn't drink to party. [...] Alcohol and cocaine were private things to me. I
would use them for work. […] The blow keeps you awake and the alcohol lowers your inhibitions.
I'm sure there were musical things I would not have attempted were I not in that mental state."
However, by 2004, he admitted he, quote,
"became a very angry drunk" and so, in 2008, he finally got sober.
In addition to drinking and doing cocaine, Eddie Van Halen was also a lifelong smoker,
which likely resulted in his greatest health struggle of
all. When Esquire met up with Van Halen in 2012, a journalist described him as,
quote, "the healthiest fifty-seven-year-old I've ever seen." But behind the, quote,
"happy, lean and muscled" facade lay a heartbreaking health battle with tongue cancer.
In 2000, Van Halen found a callus on his tongue. Initially, he didn't make much of it,
but doctors later diagnosed the abnormality as cancer. They asked Van Halen to drink, quote,
"an experimental radioactive rinse," then eventually removed a portion of his tongue.
The musician actually lost one third of his tongue to the disease,
which led him to quit smoking, but he eventually began vaping instead.
Could it be that Eddie Van Halen's first love, the thing that he loved
most - music - caused his battle with tongue cancer? Following the diagnosis, the musician
didn't seem willing to place the blame on his heavy smoking. Instead, he had a different theory.
In another interview with Billboard, he said,
"I used metal picks - they're brass and copper - which I always held in my mouth,
in the exact place where I got the tongue cancer. [...] Plus, I basically
live in a recording studio that's filled with electromagnetic energy. So that's one theory."
Conceding that he smoked and did drugs for most of his life, he said,
"But at the same time, my lungs are totally clear.
This is just my own theory, but the doctors say it's possible."
Van Halen's theory is possible, but unlikely. According to Dr.
Tom Micklewright, neither copper nor brass are classified as carcinogens.
In an interview with Insider, Micklewright said,
"Copper coils have been used as contraception in the human body for many years without evidence in
increased cancer risk. [...] In contrast, numerous chemicals contained within
cigarettes have been conclusively proven to significantly increase cancer risk."
As Eddie Van Halen revealed in the 2012 Esquire interview, despite being cancer-free
for numerous years following surgery on his tongue, the disease returned twice in 2011.
He said that doctors had found and removed cancer cells from his throat in the spring, then found
the cancer was back in his tongue in the fall and were forced to remove another piece of it.
Unfortunately, his health deteriorated again in 2012 when, according to the band's website,
he was rushed to hospital for emergency surgery for a severe bout of diverticulitis. Diverticula
are small, bulging pouches that can form in the lining of the digestive system,
causing abdominal pain, a fever, nausea, and bowel problems.
Despite the severity of the condition,
the band confirmed Van Halen was expected to recover within four to six months.
Following his 2012 health scare, Eddie Van Halen remained largely
silent about his battle with cancer, but it wasn't because he was in remission.
According to an October 2019 report from TMZ, the rocker had been quietly traveling from
the U.S. to Germany for years to seek treatment for throat cancer. Since his diagnosis in 2000,
he not only had to have cancer cells removed from his throat multiple times, but he had
also been getting radiation in Germany for five years without really telling anyone.
But that's not all. Eddie Van Halen was dealt yet another blow in his fight to get
healthy when his cancer treatment resulted in its own series of complications in 2019.
In November of 2019, he was taken to hospital for several days due to an adverse reaction
caused by the cancer-fighting drugs, which led to intestinal problems and abdominal pain.
Eddie Van Halen and Valerie Bertinelli may seem like an unconventional pairing,
but the couple was actually married for two decades and had one child together,
their son, Wolfgang, whom Bertinelli called, quote, "the one true light
in my life." Van Halen would seem to agree, noting in a 2012 interview,
"I'm just the luckiest father on the planet." According to a Daily Mail article, Bertinelli
and Eddie met backstage at a Van Halen concert in 1980 and said "I do" three months later.
As Bertinelli wrote in her memoir, Losing It, they were too reckless to make it work.
Recalling a moment when they were filling out premarital questionnaires, she revealed,
"We each held a little vial of cocaine. Now, if you ask me,
those are not two people who should be making decisions about the rest of their lives."
Meanwhile, Van Halen manger Noel Monk recalled his
own anecdote from the wedding day in his memoir Runnin’ with the Devil.
He wrote,
"I found Valerie in her beautiful white lace wedding gown, looking every inch the
angel - except for the tears streaming down her cheeks. Valerie was holding her husband's
head over a toilet bowl, pulling his hair back to make sure it didn't become encrusted with puke."
While Van Halen promised to ditch the drugs, he hit the road and returned to alcohol and
cocaine. Soon, Bertinelli, who went on tour with him, had joined the downward spiral, allegedly
using cocaine to lose weight. They separated in 2001 and finalized their divorce in 2007.
If you or someone you know is struggling with Substance Abuse
and Mental Health, please contact the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Administration’s 24/7 National Helpline
at 1-800-662-HELP. That’s 1-800-662-4357.