Sammy Hagar Tells How Final Phone Call with Eddie Van Halen Impacted Him

LOS ANGELES – Veteran rocker Sammy Hagar told Variety that his final telephone call with Eddie Van Halen "Broke his heart" after many attempts to reach his former bandmate on the iconic rock band.

Hagar told Variety writer Tim Chan that he had tried several times in the months prior to Van Halen's passing to reach the iconic rock guitarist. The Red Rocker said he didn't have his former bandmate's telephone number and was leaving messages with Van Halen's friends, manager and his brother and fellow band founder Alex Van Halen, to no avail. But it took a call to comedian George Lopez, who was Eddie Van Halen's longtime friend that finally got the two together.

Hagar said he had heard that Eddie Van Halen was "not doing well" and wanted to reach him to show his support. But thanks to Lopez, who was able to give him his number, Hagar was finally able to connect with his estranged friend and former bandmate.

“Poor Eddie, broke my heart, but thank God we connected before [he died],” Hagar said. “I heard he was in bad shape and I wanted to reach out; I finally said, ‘I’m just calling him.'”

Hagar said that after he was finally able to reach Van Halen, there was only love and no animosity between the two longtime musical partners. “I said, ‘Why don’t you respond? I’ve been reaching out,'” Hagar recalled, “and Ed said, ‘Why didn’t you call me? Don’t fucking call my brother, fucking call me!’ And I said, ‘I love you man,’ and it was like, boom, we were good. It was.”

Eddie Van Halen died on Oct. 6 after a long battle with lung cancer.