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Howard Stern wants to see some good come out of Meat Loaf’s dying.
The Bat Out of Hell singer passed away last week at the age of 74, and while his cause of death is still unknown, TMZ has reported claims that he had been “seriously ill with COVID.”
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TMZ also reported that he had been outspoken about the virus and against vaccine mandates, though it is not known whether or not he was vaccinated.
On his SiriusXM show, Stern addressed the rumours: “Poor Meat Loaf got sucked into some weird f**king cult. And somehow really believed that — he made a statement, ‘I’d rather die a free man than take that vaccine.’ And now he’s dead!”
The host was likely referencing Meat Loaf’s interview with the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette in August, in which he said, “I hug people in the middle of COVID. I understood stopping life for a little while, but they cannot continue to stop life because of politics. And right now they’re stopping because of politics.”
“Oh, God. We’re being controlled by everybody,” the interviewer said, to which Meat Loaf responded, “Yeah, I know. But not me. If I die, I die, but I’m not going to be controlled.”
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Stern made a plea to Meat Loaf’s family to get the word out about the importance of vaccination against COVID.
“I wish the family would come forward and say, ‘Ya know, when Meat Loaf was lying there in the hospital and he couldn’t breathe, he said, ‘I made a mistake. I should have taken the vaccine.’ Like all these anti-vaxxers, they all say, ‘I made a mistake.’”