Howard Stern urges Meat Loaf’s family to advocate for Covid-19 vaccine

Howard Stern has called on Meat Loaf’s family to advocate for Covid-19 vaccinations.

Last week, it was announced that the Bat Out of Hell hitmaker had passed away at the age of 74.

A cause of death has not been confirmed, but a report by TMZ stated that Meat Loaf – real name Michael Lee Aday – had been “seriously ill” with Covid-19.

Following the news, media personality Stern called on Meat Loaf’s family to encourage others to get vaccinated against the virus, arguing that the singer had been “sucked into some weird f**king cult” before his death.

“I wish the family would come forward and say, ‘Ya know, when Meat Loaf was laying there in the hospital and he couldn’t breathe, he said, ‘I made a mistake. I should have taken the vaccine.’ Like all these anti-vaxxers, they all say, ‘I made a mistake,” the radio host commented, reports Variety.

According to Rolling Stone, Meat Loaf had listened to Eric Clapton and Van Morrison’s anti-lockdown song Stand & Deliver prior to his passing, telling fans it was “a song of great interest”.

And in an interview with The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette published in August, he shared his thoughts on the pandemic.

“I hug people in the middle of COVID,” Meat Loaf stated at the time. “I understood stopping life for a little while, but they cannot continue to stop life because of politics. And right now, they’re stopping because of politics.”

The interviewer noted that they are being “controlled by everybody,” to which he responded: “Yeah, I know. But not me. If I die, I die, but I’m not going to be controlled.”

Experts from the U.K.’s National Health Service (NHS) maintain COVID-19 vaccines are safe, effective, and offer the best protection against the contagious virus.