Mike Wolfe opens up about the final years of his late friend Frank Fritz.
In an exclusive interview with PEOPLE, Wolfe — Fritz’ American pickers costar and longtime best friend — reflects on the ups and downs of their decades-long friendship and the support he provided Fritz during the star’s private battle with opioid addiction.
“Here’s the deal,” Wolfe says, protective of his friend. “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 I and so many people struggled to understand what was going on in his life.”
During the pandemic, Wolfe says both he and Fritz dealt with “relationships falling apart.” Around the same time, Fritz injured his back while moving a few things around the house and had to have surgery.
In American pickers‘ Frank Fritz and Mike Wolfe’s Ten-Year Friendship: From Fall to Reconciliation
Frank Fritz.
Michael N. Todaro/FilmMagic
“With that time off and his surgery, it was like a perfect storm,” recalls Wolfe, who says he and Fritz’s loved ones staged the intervention. – He became addicted to opioids and then everything changed.
About a month after the intervention, “I remember running into him… He said he was going to take care of it himself, and I asked him how he was doing,” Wolfe continues. “He said, ‘I’m fine. I’m fine. No, I’m really fine’.”
But it was clear, Wolfe says, that Fritz was still struggling. “Watching Frank do some of the things he did, it was really hard,” he says.
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Finally, recording for American pickers picked up again, and Wolfe says he “fought hard to get it [Fritz] to rehab.” But while he “never, ever gave up” on his best friend, when the production asked for negative drug tests, Fritz couldn’t provide them.
“The network finally made a decision,” says Wolfe. “They just say, ‘Listen, we’ve got to move on. We’ve got to get on with this.’ I had mixed emotions about it … and we were just trying to figure out what to do.”
In an interview with S. 2021 SunFritz talked about seeking treatment for alcohol abuse. He also claimed he hadn’t spoken to Wolfe in two years and admitted he felt like he had taken “second place” while Wolfe was considered “No. 1” in the eyes of the show.
Wolfe admits that the longtime friends have parted ways, but now emphasizes that they “never broke up.”
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“I stepped back a little bit because I was watching what he was doing, but I was still fighting for him to go to rehab and I was still having those conversations,” he says. “I never completely distanced myself from him. It would be impossible for me to do that. But I watched everything unfold. I tried to help him as best I could and we talked.”
Losing Fritz’s friendship at the time was like “losing a brother,” says Wolfe. Although Fritz’s words were painful, he understood that they were coming from a place of pain. In the end, the two were reunited in an emotional reunion that featured lots of hugs, tears and laughter.
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“It was beautiful. He was struggling with addiction. I know how judgmental the public can be. And that’s why it was so easy for me to forgive him when we finished retelling the story because I knew it wasn’t him saying that. It was his speech addiction,” she says. Wolf.
After Fritz was hospitalized for a stroke in 2022, his health never recovered, and he died of complications from a stroke on September 30 at the age of 60. When he took his last breath, Wolfe, his mother, and Fritz’s late mother’s best friend, Annette, were by his side.
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