Alex Van Halen has reignited his long-running feud with Sammy Hagar, calling his former Van Halen bandmate a “complete idiot” while dismissing Hagar’s 2011 autobiography, Red: My Uncensored Life In Rock.
The latest round of insults comes via an interview with Brazil’s Roadie Crew magazine. The recently knighted drummer was asked to offer his thoughts about the autobiographies written by Van Halen’s two classic-era frontmen: David Lee Roth’s Crazy From the Heart and Hagar’s Red.
His assessment of Roth’s book was largely positive, describing it as “quite entertaining” and saying it “faithfully reflects [Roth’s] sense of humor.”
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“While the text is somewhat abstract and occasionally loses the thread, it remains a very interesting perspective on that era,” Alex added.
He was far less charitable when it came to Hagar, whose book chronicled some of Eddie Van Halen’s struggles with alcoholism and included other unflattering accounts of the guitarist. Alex dismissed the book out of hand.
I don’t know what he wrote, and I don’t want to know.”
— Alex Van Halen
“I don’t know what he wrote, and I don’t want to know,” the drummer said. “In my opinion, Sammy Hagar is a complete idiot.”
Alex’s latest comment is just the latest volley in a war of words that has gone on for years. In 2024, he disparaged Hagar’s Best of All Worlds tour, which featured former Van Halen bass guitarist Michael Anthony alongside Hagar, guitarist Joe Satriani and drummer Jason Bonham, saying the lineup wasn’t “doing the band justice.”
Hagar had reportedly invited Alex to join the tour in an attempt to put their differences aside. When the drummer didn’t respond, Hagar grew increasingly frustrated.
“Al, you’re fine. Just leave me alone. I’ll leave you alone. Everything’s good,” Hagar told Rolling Stone in 2025. “I’m making you money, by the way, Al. I’m out there selling Van Halen records and keeping the name alive, keeping the music alive.”
In the same interview, Hagar suggested that Alex was “angry” because “he seems like he doesn’t want to play drums or can’t play drums anymore.”
Hagar later criticized Alex’s 2024 autobiography, Brothers, in which the drummer largely ignored Hagar’s years in Van Halen, calling the omission “blasphemy.” The singer took another shot at Alex last March, comparing their relationship to the famously fractured partnership between Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour and Roger Waters.
“I’m the biggest Pink Floyd fan,” Hagar told Classic Rock. “I see David Gilmour say, ‘I will never play with Roger Waters again,’ and I know what he means. I feel that way about Alex Van Halen. They’re negative people.”
Hagar also explained why he remains enthusiastic about the Best of All Worlds project, arguing that the lineup offers the closest thing fans can get to the Van Halen experience today.
“Because frickin’ Mike Anthony’s in the band, I feel good about playing a lot of Van Halen stuff, ’cause no one will ever hear it again,” he said. “That was the biggest part of my career — everybody’s career, for God’s sake. It was the biggest band in the world.”
Notably, Alex recently spoke glowingly of Roth, calling the former Van Halen singer “a poet” and saying, “We did our best work with Dave.” His contrasting views of Van Halen’s two classic-era frontmen underscore just how little the decades-old feud with Hagar has faded.
