Eddie Van Halen's Brother Describes Musician's Troubled Final Days

The death of Eddie Van Halen in 2020 marked a massive loss to the music world, but the rock star's deterioration began well before he passed away. 

In a new interview with Rolling Stone, his brother and Van Halen bandmate Alex Van Halen opened up about his final days as he battled cancer. His throat cancer metastasized to his brain and doctors performed a surgery to remove a brain tumor; after the procedure, they prescribed him steroid pills to combat swelling. 

The pills, Alex said, made his brother feel "like Superman." "If two’s good, 20's better. That was our mantra," he said of their thought process. As Eddie continually sought the feeling that the pills gave him, he took every pill in the bottle one day, much to Alex's surprise. "I didn’t see the bottle, but the bottle had, like, a thousand pills in it," he remembered. 

Eddie Van Halen struggled with alcohol and drug addiction throughout his life, and it seemed to be a demon he was battling up until the end. And though he's been gone for four years now, Alex said he's since reunited with his brother in an otherwordly form. "Ed’s been around a couple times, I can tell you that," he stated plainly, noting that he felt his brother's presence even that day.

Ultimately, he thinks his brother is satisfied with what he achieved in his life with his brother at his side. "He’s fine," Alex said honestly. "Wherever he is, he’s fine."