American Pickers star Mike Wolfe has opened up about reconciling with his former co-star Frank Fritz before his passing on September 30 and how he was with him when he “took his last breath.”
In an interview with People, Wolfe spoke highly of Fritz, whom he first met in middle school before becoming best friends and going on to co-host the long-running History Channel series American Pickers together.
“He was a lot like he was on camera. He was very sensitive. He was very caring. He was extremely funny. His sense of comedic timing was unbelievable,” Wolfe told the outlet. “Actually, the crew and myself would always tell him that he should do stand-up because he was always very self-deprecating.”
Wolfe continued, “He was an extremely hard worker. He was like no one I’d ever met in my whole life.” He also noted how Fritz was the only person who “didn’t make fun” of him when he first pitched American Pickers as a reality show.
American Pickers debuted in 2010 and saw Wolfe, Fritz, and others traveling across the U.S. in search of rare Americana artifacts and national treasures to add to their collections or sell in their antique shops. The show would become one of the History Channel’s most popular programs.
However, on July 21, 2021, the History Channel announced that Fritz would be departing the series. In an interview with The U.S. Sun at the time, Fritz revealed he’d sought treatment for alcohol abuse ahead of his exit from the show and that he hadn’t spoken to Wolfe in two years.
“There was a lot of noise. That’s a nice way to put it,” Wolfe said of Fritz’s 2021 interview. “This is so hard for me to talk about because there were a lot of things that were said that weren’t true, and I always continued to pray for him. But unfortunately, the things that we want for someone… sometimes [it’s] just not enough, and they have to want these things for themselves.”
Wolfe went on to say that Fritz “became addicted to opioids” after injuring his back in a fall, “and that’s when everything changed.”
“I don’t have the right to tell his story — only he does. But I do have, I feel, the right to tell the personal story of how myself and so many people struggled to navigate what was going on in his life,” Wolfe continued, noting how he and others staged an intervention to help Fritz amid his battle with addiction.
Wolfe recalled “running into him like a month later. He said he was just going to handle everything on his own, and I asked him how he was doing. He said, ‘I’m fine. I’m fine. No, I’m really fine.’ And then like a month later, he was gone. And so watching Frank doing some of the things that he was doing, it was really hard.”
The break up for the friendship was “like losing a brother,” Wolfe shared, adding that “it was so hard to hear him say the things that he said.”
Despite the breakdown of the friendship, Wolfe said he “never stepped away from him completely” and “tried to help him as best I could.”
Wolfe and Fritz patched up their differences in 2022, with the former saying, “I know how judgmental the public can be. And so that’s why when we did end up speaking again, it was so easy for me to forgive him because I knew it wasn’t him talking. It was his addiction talking.”
Related‘American Pickers’ Star Frank Fritz’s Cause of Death Revealed
In July 2022, Fritz suffered a stroke, and his health never recovered. He died on September 30, 2024, at 60 years old. Wolfe said he was by his friend’s side in his final moments.
“I got the call that he wasn’t doing well. I just feel blessed that I was able to get there,” Wolfe shared. “I was there for about an hour before he passed, and I was holding his hand and rubbing his chest when he took his last breath. I took my fingers and I closed his eyes.”
Revealing what was said in those last moments, Wolfe recalled, “I just told him that I wasn’t mad at him and that I loved him and that I cared about him so much. And then when I could see that he was struggling, I just said, ‘Just go find your mom. Go find her right now. Just go find her.’”
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