American Pickers’ Mike Wolfe Opens Up in Emotional Interview About Frank Fritz’s Opioid Addiction: ‘Everything Changed’

Wolfe tells PEOPLE exclusively that Fritz became addicted to opioids after undergoing back surgery during the pandemic

Mike Wolfe is opening up about his late friend Frank Fritz’s final years.

In an exclusive interview with PEOPLE, Wolfe — Fritz’ American Pickers costar and longtime best friend — reflects on the highs and lows of their decades-long friendship and the support he lent Fritz during the star’s private battle with opioid addiction.

“Here’s the deal,” says Wolfe, 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 myself and so many people struggled to navigate what was going on in his life.”

During the pandemic, Wolfe says he and Fritz were both dealing with “relationships that were falling apart.” Around the same time, Fritz sustained a back injury 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,” recalls Wolfe, who says he and Fritz’s loved ones staged an intervention. “He became addicted to opioids, and that’s when everything changed.”

About a month after the intervention, “I remember running into him… He said he was just going to handle everything on his own, and I asked him how he was doing,” continues Wolfe. “He said, ‘I’m fine. I’m fine. No, I’m really fine.'”

But it was clear, says Wolfe, that Fritz was still struggling. “Watching Frank doing some of the things that he was doing, it was really hard,” he says.

Eventually, filming for American Pickers picked up again, and Wolfe says he “fought really hard to get [Fritz] into rehab.” But while he “never, ever gave up” on his best friend, 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.”

In a 2021 interview with The Sun, Fritz spoke about seeking treatment for alcohol abuse. 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.

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. “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.”

Losing Fritz’s friendship at the time was like “losing a brother,” says Wolfe. While Fritz’s words were hurtful, he understood they were coming from a place of pain. Eventually, the two came back together in an emotional reunion that held plenty 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 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.

After Fritz was hospitalized from a stroke in 2022, his 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.