Howard Stern urges Meat Loaf's family to publicly endorse the COVID-19 vaccine after his death

• Howard Stern has urged Meat Loaf's family to speak out in favour of the COVID-19 vaccine.
• In a 2021 conversation about COVID restrictions, Meat Loaf said: "If I die, I die, but I'm not going to be controlled."

Radio host Howard Stern has urged Meat Loaf's family to speak out in favour of the COVID vaccine after the rock star's death last week.

Meat Loaf's family announced in a statement that the singer passed away aged 74 on January 20. They did not provide a cause of death and TMZ reported that the singer had a severe case of COVID-19 when he died, citing unnamed sources.

It has not been confirmed whether Meat Loaf was vaccinated at the time of his death.

He previously spoke to The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette in August 2021 about COVID regulations: "I hug people in the middle of COVID. I understood stopping life for a little while, but they cannot continue to stop life because of politics," he said. "And right now they're stopping because of politics."

When the interviewer stated that "we're being controlled by everybody," Meat Loaf replied, "Yeah, I know. But not me. If I die, I die, but I'm not going to be controlled."

Speaking on his SiriusXM radio show this week, Stern implied he believed Meat Loaf was unvaccinated. "Poor Meat Loaf got sucked into some weird fucking cult," he said. "And somehow really believed that — he made a statement, 'I'd rather die a free man than take that vaccine.' And now he's dead!"

He urged Meat Loaf's family to come out in support of vaccines. "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.'"

Insider has reached out to Meat Loaf's former manager, Michael Greene, for comment.

Stern has repeatedly spoken out against people who are unvaccinated. "If it was up to me, anyone unvaccinated would not be admitted to a hospital," he said on "The Howard Stern Show" last week. "At this point, they have been given plenty of opportunity to get the vaccine."