Smoker Eddie Van Halen Blames His Tongue Cancer on Guitar Picks & Electromagnetic Energy

We often hear religious people go to absurd lengths to explain things that have perfectly natural explanations. (What caused that tornado? Gay people, not weather patterns.)

So when a rock star does something similar, might as well call him out on it.

Eddie Van Halen, who appears on the cover of the latest Billboard magazine, has a very odd explanation for losing “one-third of his tongue to a cancer that eventually drifted into his esophagus”:

“I used metal picks — they’re brass and copper — which I always held in my mouth, in the exact place where I got the tongue cancer,” he says. “Plus, I basically live in a recording studio that’s filled with electromagnetic energy. So that’s one theory… But at the same time, my lungs are totally clear. This is just my own theory, but the doctors say it’s possible.”

So metal picks and electromagnetic energy caused his tongue cancer? That’s… makes no scientific sense.

I used ellipses in that passage. So let me quote the full thing this time:

“I used metal picks — they’re brass and copper — which I always held in my mouth, in the exact place where I got the tongue cancer,” he says. “Plus, I basically live in a recording studio that’s filled with electromagnetic energy. So that’s one theory. I mean, I was smoking and doing a lot of drugs and a lot of everything. But at the same time, my lungs are totally clear. This is just my own theory, but the doctors say it’s possible.”

He smoked for four decades… but blames the tongue cancer on guitar picks… and electromagnetic energy that I guess targets the inside of his mouth (and no one else’s).

That makes as much sense as jumping off your roof and then blaming your broken leg on eating too many carbs.

Who’s his doctor? The Food Babe?