Alex Van Halen calls former bandmate Sammy Hagar an “idiot” as he talks about the latter’s 2011 memoir

Drummer and co-founder of the legendary rock band Van Halen, Alex Van Halen has recently opened up about his beef with former bandmate Sammy Hagar. According to Page Six, Alex, 73, during a conversation with Marcelo Vieira, a journalist from Brazil, in early September 2026, took a shot at Hagar, who was Van Halen's frontman from 1985 to 1996, when asked about Sammy's book Red: My Uncensored Life in Rock, released in March 2011.

According to Page Six, during the interview with Vieira, which was originally in Portuguese and later translated, Alex Van Halen called Sammy Hagar an "idiot". Brother of Eddie Van Halen, Alex, who was Van Halen's drummer for close to five decades, said:

"I don't know what he wrote, and I don't wanna know. In my opinion, Sammy Hagar is a complete idiot."

Following Alex's rude comment, Sammy took the opportunity to respond to it with an Instagram comment, in which he wrote:

"This comment and post is so unnecessary at this time in our lives, but I guess the truth hurts sometimes. Peace already."

The recent insult and remarks between Alex and Sammy come after a long period of tension between the two. As cited by Page Six, according to Hagar, there has been no communication between them for over twenty years.

Back in 2024, when Sammy invited Alex Van Halen to join him and Van Halen's former bassist Michael Anthony to be a part of the Best of All Worlds tour, he turned down the invitation. While speaking with Billboard in 2024, Alex said:

"I'm not interested. They're not doing the band justice. They can do what they want to do. That's not my business."

Sammy Hagar called Alex Van Halen one of the "negative people"

While Sammy Hagar made it quite clear in an interview with Classic Rock earlier this year that he does not want to play with or perform alongside Alex Van Halen, he said:

"I’m the biggest Pink Floyd fan. 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."

While talking about how he once dreamt about Alex Van Halen, Sammy went ahead and said:

"I hate to say it, but I dreamt about Alex the other night, man. It was crazy. And it was so fri*gin’ real. I was saying, 'What are you p—ed off at me about, man? What the f—? Now, just tell me what your problem is. What did I do? Just tell me.'"

Hagar further added that Alex is upset with him:

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"Because I’m out doing it, and Mike [Anthony] and I are out doing it, and he can’t. He’s not a singer. He’s not a guitar player. He is not really a band leader. And he seems like he doesn’t want to play drums or can’t play drums anymore, and he can’t go write a new record."

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