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Wolfgang Van Halen slams TV documentary on his father’s death: “Fucking disgusting trying to glamorise someone’s death from cancer”

The show implies that host Dr Michael Hunter will look into Van Halen’s previously documented drug abuse as part of the reason for his passing.

Wolfgang Van Halen on stage, he's singing into a mic and playing guitar

Image: Scott Legato / Getty

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Wolfgang Van Halen has called an upcoming episode of TV documentary show Autopsy: The Last Hours Of… that chronicles the death of his father Eddie “pathetic and heartless”.

Taking to Twitter to express his outrage in response to an article about the upcoming episode, Wolfgang wrote, “Fuck @ReelzChannel, fuck everyone that works on this show, and fuck you if you watch it. Fucking disgusting trying to glamorise someone’s death from cancer. Pathetic and heartless.”

Reelz’ description of the episode on their website reads, “Often relying on alcohol and other substances to maintain his creativity, Eddie would spend many years in and out of rehab. He was a workaholic, often pushing his body to the limits in order to perform while secretly battling illness. Eddie died at the age of 65 from cancer. But if caught early, Eddie’s disease had reasonable survival rates,” before going on to imply that show host Dr Michael Hunter would look into Van Halen’s previously documented drug abuse as part of the reason for his passing.

A copy of EVH’s death certificate obtained by TMZ following his passing in 2020 revealed the immediate cause of death was a cerebrovascular accident – or a stroke. He had also been suffering a variety of underlying conditions: lung cancer, pneumonia and myelodysplastic syndrome, a bone marrow disease.

Several weeks after Van Halen’s death, Wolfgang opened up about his father’s health struggles. He revealed that Van Halen was diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer and a brain tumour in 2017. At the time, doctors had told him he had six weeks to live.

Wolfgang recently spoke about how he navigates the expectations created by his father’s legacy, saying, “I’m very blessed to have the opportunities that I’m able to just because of my last name. I really don’t think that the last name keeps those doors open for you. If you don’t have the goods to back it up you’re not going to be there for long. So I guess if I disappear in the next year I didn’t have it.”

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