Sammy Hagar has reacted to his former bandmate Alex Van Halen calling him “a complete idiot”.
The former Van Halen drummer made the comment during an interview with Brazilian music journalist Marcelo Vieira for Roadie Crew magazine.
Vieira, who translated Van Halen’s 2024 memoir Brothers memoir into Portuguese for sale in Brazil, asked the drummer for his opinions on the the autobiographies written by his former bandmates David Lee Roth and Hagar. While Van Halen praised Roth’s Crazy From The Heat memoir as “a very interesting perspective on that era”, he was less complimentary about Hagar.
“I don’t know what he wrote, and I don’t wanna know,” he said about Hagar’s book Red: My Uncensored Life In Rock, adding, “In my opinion, Sammy Hagar is a complete idiot.”
The comment was picked up by instagram account Rock Celebrities and posted online. Hagar subsequently responded to the post, writing, “This comment and post is so unnecessary at this time in our lives, but I guess the truth hurts sometimes. Peace already”.
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Last year, Hagar spoke about his famously difficult relationship with former Van Halen bandmate to Rolling Stone. When writer Andy Greene suggested that the reason for the fractious relationship is that Van Halen is an intensely private individual, while Hagar has always been happy to speak publicly about their relationship, Hagar responded, “I don’t think that’s it.”
“I’ve had this conversation with a few people, including [former VH manager] Irving Azoff,” he continued. “I’ve asked him, ‘What’s the problem?’
“And some people have said to me, ‘Oh, Cabo Wabo [the nightclub company founded by the members of Van Halen in 1980]. At one time, Van Halen, when you built it, you guys were all partners in that. And then they didn’t want it anymore when it was losing money, and they gave it to you [Hagar bought out his bandmates in 1990], and you turned it around and made hundreds of millions of dollars on it. And they’re angry. Alex is angry about that.’
“To that I said, ‘How the fuck could they be angry about that? They gave me the damn thing, they walked out on me, left me with it. And they made me indemnify them in case I got sued and lost everything. They made me sign off big time.’ And I’m going, ‘I hope it’s not that.'”
