Mike Wolfe on Frank Fritz’s Addiction Battle

The late American Pickers star Frank Fritz dealt with addiction to opioids in the years before his death, his co-star and close friend Mike Wolfe reveals to People in an emotional new interview.

Wolfe pinpoints 2020 as the origin point for Fritz’s most serious addiction issues, saying that he underwent surgery to address a back issue. At the same time, pandemic-related shutdowns had cleared Fritz’s schedule, and he was in the middle of a painful romantic breakup.

“With that time off and him having surgery, it was like the perfect storm,” Wolfe explains. “He became addicted to opioids, and that’s when everything changed.”

He stressed his friend’s battle with addiction ultimately wasn’t his story to tell, but pointed out that it impacted several close relationships Fritz had at the time — including his decades-long bond with Wolfe. There was a rift between them, and Fritz exited the American Pickers show — which they’d started together — in 2021. That same year, Fritz said in an interview with The Sun that he’d gone to rehab for alcohol, been fired from the show and dealt with competition issues on-screen with Wolfe.

Now, Wolfe says it’s not exactly true that they had a complete falling-out. He tells People that Fritz’s words against him were “hurtful,” but he understood that Fritz made those comments because of all the pain he was facing behind the scenes.

“I stepped away for a little because I was watching what he was doing, but I still fought for him to go to rehab and I still had those conversations,” he continues. “And everybody was like, ‘Well, when his back is better…’ and I’m like, ‘It’s not his back. That’s one thing, but we need to help heal him, because he needs us right now.'”

Before Fritz’s 2022 stroke, he and Wolfe reconciled, and Wolfe remembers the reunion as “beautiful.”

“He was struggling with addiction. 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,” he recalls. “It was the addiction talking.”

• Fritz’s health never fully recovered after his stroke. He died on Sept. 30.
• The Quad City Times reported that between that event and his death, he spent more than two years “in and out of in-patient rehab, the hospital and, ultimately, hospice care,” which is where he died.
• On Oct. 10, TMZ reported that his primary cause of death was complications from the stroke, with COPD and aortic stenosis as contributing factors.
• Wolfe was the first to announce Fritz’s death with an emotional social media post.

Wolfe was at Fritz’s bedside when he died, alongside Fritz’s late mother’s best friend, Annette.

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“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 closed his eyes,” Wolfe remembers.

“I just told him that I wasn’t mad at him and that I loved him and that I cared about him so much,” he goes on to say. “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.'”

Despite the tumult Fritz and Wolfe faced during portions of their relationship, Wolfe says he’s grateful for all the time they spent together, as well as the time they spent together onscreen on American Pickers.