Sammy Hagar has apologised for exposing the “dark side” of his late former bandmate Eddie Van Halen in his 2011 autobiography.
During an appearance on Inside With Paulo Baron (via Ultimate Guitar), Hagar expressed his regret over writing about Van Halen in Red: My Uncensored Life in Rock.
“Because of the untimely and tragic death of Eddie Van Halen, I apologise from the bottom of my heart for exposing his dark side to where I don’t think anyone wants to hear that now, and, unfortunately, it’s in the book,” he said.
“And it’s true – it’s all true. It’s not like I have to say, ‘Oh, I was lying…’ No, no, no.”
He continued: “If I wrote the book today, I would only put the good of Eddie Van Halen, because he was such a brilliant, genius guitar player and such a great friend and a great partner – until everything went wrong, like everything else.”
“Anybody’s that’s been divorced or broke up with your girlfriend or your boyfriend, you know how it goes. Happy endings aren’t always the case in a relationship.”
“We had a happy ending – thank God – but before that, it wasn’t a happy ending of the band. But thank God we got it back together.”
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Hagar went on to add that his behaviour towards Van Halen might have changed if he’d “have known he was sick.”
“No one knew a lot of that about Eddie, but they’d see him on stage and they would think, ‘Why is he acting like that?’ And I would say, ‘Well, you should have seen what happened backstage. Holy fuck!'” he began.
He continued: “If we’d have known he was sick then, then I would have understood and I would have been a little more, ‘Hey, Ed, come on,’ try to reel him in. But he was impossible. He was on a track of just – wild. It was tough.”
“He was the sweetest guy in the world when I met him. When Eddie Van Halen walked into my dressing room in that show in Anaheim Stadium with Boston and Black Sabbath, that was one of the sweetest people, most humble human beings I’ve ever met in my life.”
“I thought, ‘How can this guy play so badass and be that humble?’ I thought, ‘It’s impossible. He must have a fire inside of him that he’s not showing.’ And when that fire came out, it was quite the fire – a freakin’ volcano,” he concluded.
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Check out Sammy Hagar discussing Eddie Van Halen:
