Eddie Van Halen’s family opened up about the rocker’s passing in a new exclusive interview with People.
In the interview, Eddie’s wife Valerie Bertinelli recalled her husband’s passing and revealed his final wish.
During the discussion, Bertinelli recalled ordering pizza in Eddie’s hospital room because it was his comfort food and also his last wish. She explained while wishing people don’t think it’s ‘morbid’:
“I forget who suggested it, but we were like, ‘Should we have pizza?’ … Because he couldn’t eat, and the last thing Ed really wanted was pizza. He loved pizza and burritos, so we had pizza in his hospital room. I hope people don’t think that’s morbid.”
The Van Halen icon died on October 6, 2020, after a long battle with cancer. His wife wrote about Eddie’s life in her memoir, ‘Enough Already: Learning to Love the Way I Am Today,’ and revealed her husband’s last words before his passing at the age of 65. Bertinelli wrote:
“‘I love you’ are the last words Ed says to Wolfie and me, and they are the last words we say to him before he stops breathing.”
She also said that after 20 minutes of silence, they started sharing stories about him and began laughing instead of crying. She added in the book:
“Suddenly, all of us are cracking up. We laugh — and it is so much better than crying.”
Bertinelli and Eddie were married for 20 years.
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