In an exclusive interview with PEOPLE, Wolfe speaks for the first time about healing his friendship with Fritz and the emotional moment they shared before his death
When American Pickers star Mike Wolfe calls from his home in Tennessee, he takes a deep breath before describing his late best friend, Frank Fritz.
Fritz was the cool kid in high school, a home owner at 19 — and the heart of their fan-favorite History Channel show. “He was a lot like he was on camera. He was very sensitive. He was very caring. He was extremely funny. His sense of comedic timing was unbelievable,” Wolfe, 60, says with a chuckle. “Actually, the crew and myself would always tell him that he should do stand-up because he was always very self-deprecating.”
“He was one of those guys, no matter who we talked to, he could always make people feel comfortable and let them know that they’re being heard,” he continues, noting how they bonded over being dealt similar cards in life.
Fritz and Wolfe — who first met in middle school — had both grown up without fathers, and the struggles they faced while “moving through life” brought them closer.
(L) Frank Fritz and Mike Wolfe on ‘American Pickers’. A+E Networks
“He was an extremely hard worker. He was like no one I’d ever met in my whole life,” Wolfe says.
When Wolfe had the initial idea to pitch American Pickers, a reality show spanning over 15 seasons, Fritz was the only person that “didn’t make fun of me,” he recalls.
Despite the naysayers in their small town in Iowa, Fritz believed they were on the precipice of something great. In 2010, season one debuted on History Channel — and their lives changed forever.
But fame and success brought unexpected challenges. In a 2021 interview with The Sun, Fritz revealed he had sought treatment for alcohol abuse ahead of his departure from American Pickers. He also claimed that he hadn’t spoken to Wolfe in two years and admitted that he felt that he took “second place” while Wolfe was considered “No. 1” in the eyes of the show.
“There was a lot of noise. That’s a nice way to put it,” Wolfe says of Fritz’s headline-making interview. “This is so hard for me to talk about, because there were a lot of things that were said that weren’t true, and I always continued to pray for him. But unfortunately, the things that we want for someone… sometimes [it’s] just not enough, and they have to want these things for themselves.”
During the pandemic, Wolfe and Fritz were both going through “relationships that were falling apart,” he says. Around the same time, Fritz hurt his back while moving a few things around at home and had to undergo surgery.
“With that time off and him having surgery, it was like the perfect storm,” Wolfe says carefully. “He became addicted to opioids, and that’s when everything changed.”
“Here’s the deal,” he continues, protective of his late 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 myself and so many people struggled to navigate what was going on in his life.”
Wolfe recalls several attempts to help Frank amid his addiction struggles. He staged an intervention with Fritz’s family members and other people who loved him.
Frank Fritz.
Charles Eshelman/FilmMagic
“I remember running into him like a month later. He said he was just going to handle everything on his own, and I asked him how he was doing. He said, ‘I’m fine. I’m fine. No, I’m really fine.’ And then like a month later, he was gone,” he says. “And so watching Frank doing some of the things that he was doing, it was really hard.”
When filming picked up again, Wolfe knew his friend was still struggling with addiction and “fought really hard to get him into rehab,” he says, underscoring that he “never, ever gave up” on Fritz.
Still, when production asked for negative drug tests, Fritz wasn’t able to provide them.
“The network just finally made the decision,” says Wolfe. “They’re just like, ‘Listen, we have to move on. We have to keep going with this.’ I had mixed emotions about doing that… and we were just trying to figure out what we were going to do.”
After Fritz exited the show, Wolfe felt like “the last man standing,” he recalls.
“I was just kind of left to fend for myself in a lot of ways. I could finish his sentences. He could finish my sentences,” he says. “I’m a left-handed person, but with him I felt ambidextrous.”
Losing Fritz’s friendship at the time was like “losing a brother,” says Wolfe. “And that’s why it was so hard to hear him say the things that he said.”
While Fritz’s words were hurtful, Wolfe knew they came from a place of pain: “I just wish that he didn’t have to deal with all of those things in the shadows … We can tell him how much we love him, and that we support him and we’re encouraging him, [but] he could just never get it back together.”
(L) Frank Fritz and Mike Wolfe on ‘American Pickers’. A+E Networks
Wolfe acknowledges the longtime friends had a rift, but underscores now that they “never disconnected.”
“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 says. “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.'”
“I never stepped away from him completely. That would be impossible for me to do. But I watched all of it unfold. I tried to help him as best I could, and we did speak,” he says.
(L) Mike Wolfe and Frank Fritz on ‘American Pickers’. A+E Networks
After some time, the two finally came back together in an emotional reunion that held plenty of hugs, tears and laughter.
“It was 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. It was his addiction talking,” says Wolfe.
There were even talks of Fritz rejoining the show. But in 2022, he was hospitalized after a “really bad stroke” — and Wolfe knew his return “wasn’t ever going to happen.”
Fritz’s health never recovered, and on Sept. 30, he died from stroke complications at age 60. When he took his final breath, Wolfe, his mother and Fritz’s late mother’s best friend Annette were by his side.
“I got the call that he wasn’t doing well. I just feel blessed that I was able to get there,” says Wolfe. “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 I closed his eyes.”
In their final moments together, “I just told him that I wasn’t mad at him and that I loved him and that I cared about him so much,” Wolfe says. “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.'”
Saying goodbye was heartbreaking, but Wolfe finds comfort in knowing they stayed close until the end.
“Once he had the stroke and he went into a facility, I saw him so many times and I was able to speak to him very candidly, and very lovingly, about everything that I ever wanted to say to him,” he says.
When it comes to how he’d like people to remember his late best friend, Wolfe wants the world to focus on the joy Fritz spread to fans.
“He was a beautiful, beautiful person that, to be honest with you, who knows what our lives would’ve been like if there was never a show,” says Wolfe. “I just want people to know who he was.”
