Wolfgang Van Halen is the only son of Van Halen frontman Eddie Van Halen and Golden Globe- winning actress Valerie Bertinelli.
The former couple, who were married from 1981 to 2007, welcomed him in 1991 and continued to co-parent him after their split. On Oct. 6, 2020, Van Halen died from throat cancer at age 65. Both Wolfgang, now 32, and Bertinelli were by his side.
“He was the best father I could ask for,” the devoted son wrote on Twitter to announce his father’s death. “Every moment I’ve shared with him on and off stage was a gift. My heart is broken and I don’t think I’ll ever recover from this loss.”
Wolfgang has followed in his father’s footsteps and is an accomplished musician. He spent 14 years playing alongside his Hall of Fame rocker dad in Van Halen and now performs as the frontman of Mammoth WVH, the one-man rock band he formed in 2020. In 2022, he received his first-ever Grammy nomination for his song “Distance.”
While he might have rock in his genes, Wolfgang has worked hard to carve his own path and get to where he is today. “Everything that I do in music is for [Eddie], so I just do the best I can and make sure I try to make him proud in everything I do,” he told PEOPLE at the 2022 Grammy Awards.
Here’s everything you need to know about Eddie Van Halen and Valerie Bertinelli’s son, Wolfgang Van Halen.
He’s named after Mozart
Van Halen and Bertinelli met backstage at a concert in 1980, when they were both at the height of their careers. After tying the knot the following year, Bertinelli gave birth to Wolfgang on March 16, 1991, in Santa Monica.
His unique name was chosen as a nod to Van Halen’s favorite composer, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, who remains a point of reference for both father and son. When asked about his father’s legacy in November 2020, Wolfgang told Entertainment Tonight, “I think he’s the Mozart of our generation.”
He is an accomplished musician
Wolfgang has been dating software engineer and photographer Andraia Allsop since 2015. While the couple is relatively private, Allsop was Wolfgang’s date — along with mom Bertinelli — at the 2022 Grammys, where he was nominated for his single “Distance.” Although he did not take home the statue, he wrote on Instagram that he was “Ok” with the loss.
“We came, we saw, but we did NOT conquer and that’s ok,” he captioned a photo of the three of them on the red carpet. “I got to have a wonderful night with the two most important women in my world ❤️.”
Just two months later, Wolfgang and Allsop got engaged.
“She said yes!! ❤️❤️❤️,” Wolfgang captioned a selfie showing off Allsop’s engagement ring. Bertinelli commented on the post, “How do I ❤️ this a million times? So happy!!!!!!!”
Although the couple keep their relationship out of the spotlight, they do make exceptions on social media from time to time, posting sweet tributes to one another on special occasions. On Allsop’s birthday in March 2022, Wolfgang wrote that she makes his life “better in every way just by existing.” He added, “I love you more than anything ❤️.”
Wolfgang’s debut single, “Distance,” was released in November 2020, shortly after Eddie’s death. The young artist also released an emotional music video that featured home videos of the father-son duo. The track reached No. 1 on both the MediaBase and BDS Active Radio Charts, and it was later nominated for best rock song at the 2022 Grammy Awards.
The song serves as a tribute to the late rock star and was written while Eddie “continued to struggle with various health issues.”
“I was imagining what my life would be like without him and how terribly I’d miss him,” Wolfgang said in a statement at the time. “While the song is incredibly personal, I think anyone can relate to the idea of having a profound loss in their life.”
Wolfgang celebrated the song’s one-year anniversary in November 2021, sharing an emotional post about its success on Instagram.
“It’s a special song for two very important reasons. A song commemorating my Pop and our bond, as well as being the very first Mammoth release. It marks the beginning of a new chapter in my life in more ways than one,” he wrote of the track. “I never could’ve imagined the overwhelming outpour of responses from something so close to my heart. It blew me away.”
He added, “I hope you’re watching and I hope you’re still proud, Pop. I love and miss you more than you could ever know ❤️.”
By age 16, Wolfgang had already experienced more than the ordinary teenager.
In 2007, the same year that his band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Eddie was struggling privately. He checked into rehabin March 2007 and told fans he was working on himself “so that in the future I can deliver the 110 percent that I feel I owe you and want to give you.”
Reflecting back on the experience, Wolfgang told Rolling Stone that he had a key role in convincing his father to enter a facility. “That’s why I was there in the band in the first place,” he told the outlet. “I wanted him to be as healthy as possible … so when the opportunity came, he was like, ‘Fuck yeah, whatever we got to do.’ ”
“I experienced a lot of life really fast,” the young rocker explained, adding that he “had to mature very quickly in order to handle (…) everything that was being thrown at me early on in my life.”
Bertinelli and her son are very close. The actress, who goes by “@wolfiesmom” on Instagram and Twitter, calls Wolfgang “the joy of her life” and couldn’t be more proud of him.
“Besides the fact that he is ridiculously talented, I’m most proud of his kindness and thoughtfulness,” the Food Network star told PEOPLE during a joint interview with Wolfgang published on June 10, 2021. “I think we both like to find humor in the absurd. This world is a seriously crazy place and it’s easier to get through it by finding it funny and absurd. Sometimes laughing is better than crying.”
Wolfgang added of their close-knit relationship, “My girlfriend and I pretty much go over to my mom’s house every day to see her and play with her cats that we love.”
“I think a lot of people don’t understand how sarcastic our relationship is,” he continued. “One time, she burnt onion rings. And it’s like, she has a cooking show, so I just made fun of her for it. I asked her if I could post it. We get in GIF battles all the time on Twitter. Sarcasm is a language, And that’s how we communicate!”
Bertinelli went as one of her son’s dates to the 2022 Grammys. Of his first-ever nomination, the proud mom told PEOPLE on the red carpet, “There’s only one other person that would be prouder than me. And that’s pretty impossible, but it would be Ed.”
In May 2023, Bertinelli posted on Instagram about appearing on Wolfgang’s Sirius XM show, Top of the Pack. She shared a picture of herself grinning while her son stood next to her, looking blankly at the camera. “Can’t you tell how much Wolfie loves it when I come on his show? ????,” she wrote in the caption.
In addition to his first single, Wolfgang’s band name, Mammoth WVH, is also a tribute to his late father and his legacy.
Eddie and Alex Van Halen first began performing as a threesome with bassist Mark Stone under the name Mammoth before changing the band’s name to Van Halen.
“Growing up I was like, whenever I have my own band, I want to call it Mammoth,” Wolfgang told Rolling Stone. “I was nervous, I asked for his permission. I was like, ‘Hey Dad, I got a question: Would it be cool if I called the band this?’ And he was like, ‘Yeah, why would you worry about that?’ He was really stoked.”
In June 2023, Mammoth WVH released the song “Take a Bow,” on which Wolfgang played Eddie’s iconic Frankenstein guitar.
“It’s officially the longest song I’ve released to date, and I feel the guitar solo is really special. I played the solo on the original Frankenstein guitar and through Dad’s original Marshall head and one of the original cabinets,” he told Guitar.com. “It’s straight up what he used on the earliest Van Halen records. It makes me happy to capture some of Dad’s history on this song forever.”
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