Runnin' with the Devil

by Noel Monk

  “Ed, you know Valerie Bertinelli is here, and she wants to meet you.”

  Edward barely broke stride. A quizzical look crossed his face.

  “Who?”

  “Valerie Bertinelli. You know . . . One Day at a Time.”

  A faint look of recognition, followed by a nod and a squinty-eyed smile. “Ohhhhh yeah, right. Cool. Let me clean up.”

  I don’t know if Edward actually knew who she was. He was not much of a fan of pop culture in general, but I know that his father used to watch the show. Regardless, it looked as he walked away as though he was trying to dredge up an image to go with a name that he kinda, sorta recognized.

  Meanwhile, just down the hall, in a private room, was Valerie, and the image she projected was at once adorable and glamorous. Valerie was a very pretty young woman, but almost in an adolescent way. She had wide, dark eyes and thick brown hair falling across a cherubic face. She was quite cute, if not exactly gorgeous or sexy in the traditional sense. She was dressed nicely—so nicely, in fact, that she resembled nothing so much as a teenager trying to show off. Which, obviously, was not the case. She was an adult with a thriving career and a ton of money. But, like millions of adolescent girls, she also carried an infatuation for the lead guitarist of Van Halen.

  After Edward dried off and changed his clothes, I introduced him to Valerie. It was kind of cute to see them together—they were both clearly nervous and somewhat reticent. This struck me as a sign of genuine chemistry. After all, Valerie had spent most of her life in front of a camera or audience; she was completely comfortable with all manner of public interaction. And yet, here she was, stammering and blushing like a schoolgirl in the presence of the captain of the football team. And Edward? Here was a guy who went out onstage every night and performed, wizardlike, in front of thousands of adoring fans. In the presence of this young woman, however, the rock star façade melted away. He was clearly drawn to her, yet too shy and intimidated to take control of the situation.

  If theirs was an odd match, it was nonetheless genuine. I could tell right away that they liked each other and that there existed the potential for some sort of ongoing relationship, whatever that might entail in the volatile world of celebrity romance. But not in my wildest imagination did I envision the whirlwind courtship and commitment that followed.

  I WAS IN MY OFFICE in early November 1980 when I got a phone call from the band’s attorney informing me that Edward was being sued by the District Attorney of Riverside County for “the responsibility of establishing paternity.”

  By this time Eddie and Valerie were a mere three months into their relationship, but what a torrid affair it had become. They were together all the time when the band was in California, and when we were on the road, Valerie would do her best to show up in various cities and spend some quality time with her new boyfriend. Things progressed so quickly that by the time I got this phone call, Edward and Valerie were already deep into planning their wedding, which would take place in the springtime—specifically, April 11, 1981.

  Given those circumstances, the last thing I needed or expected was the threat of a paternity suit against the lead guitarist of my band. Let me put that another way: claims of paternity by jilted, crazed, or simply avaricious former sexual partners were in fact an ever-present danger in the world of big-time rock ’n’ roll. For the most part, those who hooked up with a rock star got precisely what they wanted, as did the musician: a fleeting night (or maybe just a fleeting few minutes) of carnal contact with zero expectations. Fun for everyone involved.

  Unfortunately, there were myriad ways in which the arrangement could get complicated for one or both parties, in particular for the rock star. Sometimes a one-night stand became more than a one-night stand, which could lead to unrealistic expectations that the relationship might grow into something more permanent and meaningful, when in fact there was almost no chance of that happening. I’m not saying these hookups were exploitative or abusive; far from it. But certainly the balance of power and the likelihood of things ending badly made it an unwise decision to develop these sorts of relationships on the road. Then, too, there was always the possibility that a single night with a millionaire rock star could lead to claims of paternity, real or imagined, simply as a means to extort money from someone who could surely afford to part with a few dollars—especially if it meant keeping things out of the media.

  Did this happen with great frequency? No . . . but it did happen.

  Whatever the motivation, I found myself dealing with such an accusation that November morning. I neither believed nor disbelieved the claim—given the number of indiscriminate sexual encounters that occurred on the road, anything was possible. Sex was an almost daily occurrence, and unprotected sex was common. It wasn’t until Edward came to visit me that I was able to formulate an opinion on the matter.

  Edward did not look well that day. He was generally an affable type whose demeanor soured only with excessive drinking or drug use, but on this day he was disheveled and nervous. Aside from music, Edward took few things seriously—and even in this area he managed to be deeply accomplished while presenting an air of indifference. In truth, when it came to playing the guitar, he was both gifted and ambitious; you just wouldn’t know it by looking at him. Now, though, he seemed filled with dread. As he pulled up a chair in my office, he fidgeted nervously. He had a guitar slung over his shoulder. In one hand he held a beer, in the other a cigarette, from which he took long and frequent drags. The paternity situation was a real-life event that had to be confronted, and Edward had no idea what to do. He was paralyzed by panic.

  “Noel, why is she doing this to me? What does she want?”

  “Well, Ed, I believe what she wants is to be recognized as the mother of your child, which would carry with it certain financial obligations on your part.”

  There was no response. Edward just sat there with a pained expression on his face, rocking anxiously in his seat.

  “Look, Edward, it’s actually pretty simple. Do you think this woman is telling the truth or not? Could this be your child?”

  Edward shrugged. “I don’t know.”

  To me, this was as good as saying, “Yes,” but there was something about the way Edward said it that made me probe deeper.

  “Who is she, Ed? A one-night stand or something more?”

  From there Edward launched into the story of his relationship with a woman who lived in San Diego. Theirs was strictly a sexual relationship, and usually limited to the front seat of Edward’s car—sometimes in the parking lot, and other times while they rolled along the Pacific Coast Highway.

  “You know how I like a pretty face in my crotch,” Edward said, his voice expressing utter sincerity, despite the comical nature of the comment.

  “Well, who doesn’t, Ed?”

  He nodded earnestly.

  “How often did this happen?” I asked.

  Edward shrugged. “A bunch.”

  “Okay, and how many times did you have sex with her?”

  Edward offered a quizzical look. “What do you mean? I told you, a bunch.”

  “No, Ed . . . I mean sex. You know, intercourse. How many times did you fuck this woman?”

  Edward straightened up. He seemed surprised by the question.

  “Never,” he said. “I told you . . . she gave me blow jobs in the car.”

  “That’s it?”

  He nodded. “Uh-huh.“ ‘

  There was a long pause as this information hung in the air, thick as the cloud of cigarette smoke billowing above Edward’s head.

  “Ed,” I began. “Think about this very carefully. I know you’ve been with a lot of women over the last few years and it would be easy to forget some of the minor details. But this is important. Are you telling me that you never had sexual intercourse with this woman?”

  By this point Edward’s eyes were welling up. He felt as though his life was coming apart; he was supposed to be getting married in a few months, and now he was being s
ued by a woman who claimed that Edward was the father of her child. His lip quivered as he formed a response; to say the least, it was not what I expected to hear.

  “I swear to God, Noel. I never fucked her.” Another long pause as his eyes went wide. “Is there any way she could have gotten pregnant from giving me a blow job?”

  The question was one of the funniest and saddest things I had ever heard. By this time, Edward was well traveled and highly accomplished. He was widely acknowledged as one of the greatest musicians of his generation. He was rich and famous and admired by millions.

  He was also hopelessly naive. His was not a rhetorical question, nor an attempt at humor. He was not sure whether it was possible for a woman to become pregnant simply by performing oral sex, and he wanted me, the person he trusted most in the world, to tell him the truth. I wanted to laugh out loud, but I simply couldn’t. Edward loved me and I loved him—in all candor, he was the only person in the band for whom I felt that strong an emotion—and as much as I found the conversation ludicrous, the situation begged for compassion.

  “You know, Edward, I have never heard of that happening,” I said. “As a matter of fact, I would have to say no, although I suppose we could check with a doctor, just to be sure.”

  Edward let out a huge sigh of relief. All that mattered to him was my opinion, based on nothing more than common sense, that there was no way he could be the father of this woman’s child.

  “Oh, okay, okay,” he said, nodding approvingly. “That’s such a relief, man. I mean, I didn’t think so, but . . . you know.”

  No, Edward, I don’t know. But I love you, anyway.

  There were more meetings, discussions with attorneys and representatives on both sides of the issue. Edward had to come clean to both his fiancée and her family, which was not an easy thing to do. I don’t believe he ever admitted to having had any sort of relationship with the woman—or at least no relationship that continued after he met Valerie—but he did have to make his fiancée aware of the paternity suit hanging over his head.

  Around that same time, I got a phone call from Valerie’s father, a man I liked very much based on the handful of interactions we had.

  “Noel, what the hell are we going to do? These two kids are supposed to be getting married in a few months.”

  “Don’t worry, I’ll take care of everything.”

  “Yeah, I know that’s your reputation—you fix things—but how exactly are you going to do that? This is not good.”

  He was absolutely right: it wasn’t good. From a financial and public relations standpoint, it was a disaster. And from a personal standpoint, it had to be heartbreaking. I know that if I found out that the man my daughter was engaged to marry was embroiled in a paternity suit, I’d be mighty pissed. From that standpoint alone, I felt for the guy. But I also was reasonably confident that Edward had told me the truth—that he really hadn’t ever engaged in intercourse with this woman, and therefore could not possibly be the father of the child she was carrying. Therefore, all I had to tell Mr. Bertinelli was this simple fact: “It’s not true.”

  I didn’t have to elaborate. No need to tell the poor guy that while Edward had not fathered a child, he certainly had engaged in plenty of traditional rock ’n’ roll behavior. And that behavior did not stop just because he fell in love with Valerie Bertinelli. I knew we’d get Eddie out of this jam, but it wasn’t going to be easy. This was about damage control—about making a frivolous paternity suit go away as quietly as possible without writing a massive and unwarranted check. There was only one way to do that.

  “Ed, you’re going to have to take a paternity test.”

  “What? Why? I mean . . . how?”

  Three different questions, each easily answered.

  “You’re getting married in a few months,” I said.

  “You think I don’t know that?”

  “It’s not that you don’t know, it’s just that you’re not dealing with it. These things are all happening simultaneously on the same set of tracks, and you’re about to experience one hell of a train wreck. So we need to stop this before the collision, and the only way to do that is for you take a blood test.”

  “But . . . I only got a blow job.”

  It became a mantra for Edward—I only got a blow job, I only got a blow job, I only got a blow job—as if saying it often enough would somehow make the problem go away. It didn’t. He was going to have to prove through DNA testing that he could not possibly be responsible for this child. Was that fair? Maybe not. But he had put himself in this position, and there was only one way out.

  “Look, Ed, I believe you. But the fact is, you are a famous rock star with a lot of money, and sometimes people are going to try to take advantage of you. You have to deal with this paternity suit or you’re going to find yourself walking down the aisle on your wedding day, and someone is going to hand you a summons to appear in court. Trust me, that is not going to look good in the press. There will be a big picture of you being handed a summons and Valerie looking on stoically. And the headline will read: ‘But I only got a blow job!’ How does that sound?”

  Edward sighed. “Not so good.”

  It took two more meetings in my office to convince him, but eventually Edward conceded and took the test, which did, in fact, exonerate him. The paternity suit ultimately disappeared into the ether.

  Meanwhile, in the wake of this nonsense, David Lee Roth got it into his head that some protection was required from the sea of greedy groupies who were out there just waiting for the chance to trick him into fathering their child, or at least entangling him in a lawsuit. And by protection I’m not talking about condoms—although that would have been the easiest course of action.

  “Noel, I want you to see if you can get me paternity insurance,” he said not long after Edward’s troubles.

  “Paternity insurance? David, I don’t think there is such a thing.”

  “Well, there should be. Look into it. I need to protect my penis.”

  I did as instructed and made a call to someone I knew at Lloyd’s of London and said I was interested in obtaining a million-dollar policy to protect one of the guys in my band against a paternity suit. He was polite enough not to laugh but declined to offer coverage. I tried other agencies and got the same response from all of them: Paternity insurance? For a rock star? Ummmm . . . no thanks.

  I went back to David and broke the bad news; we both had a little laugh over it, and at some point I got a wicked idea: Let’s tell the media we actually did buy a paternity policy. I subsequently leaked to the press a tidbit about David purchasing a million dollars’ worth of paternity insurance, and to my great amusement they all took the bait. Even in the days before the internet, gossip could take on a life of its own. One outlet would report the story, and others would pick it up. Pretty soon it became established as fact that David Lee Roth had purchased a million-dollar paternity insurance policy.

  It simply wasn’t true. But it helped that David played along, and as a result the story would not die. To this day people still believe that we purchased such a policy. Believe me—it was all a joke. I just wanted to throw shit against the wall and see what would stick.

  WITH THIS BULLET SUCCESSFULLY DODGED, the wedding went on as scheduled—a large and traditional ceremony at St. Paul’s Catholic Church in Westwood, California, attended by several hundred guests. Admittedly, I did not see as much of the wedding as I had hoped to see. I was bored and restless, so I spent a good deal of the ceremony walking around outside, talking with security guards. In reality, this was just another workday for me. Sure, I was there to help celebrate the marriage of Edward and Valerie, but I was also there to keep an eye on all things Van Halen, just like I did at any other public performance by the band and its members. And make no mistake—a wedding is a performance.

  I didn’t even bring a date to the festivities; the last thing I needed was someone else who required my attention and might distract me from the task at hand. I already
felt somewhat out of place—these posh parties made me feel rather ill at ease and out of my depth, and they never seemed to get any easier. I had grown up on the West Side of Manhattan, and it wasn’t like I didn’t know what to expect when members of high society gathered. Still, when it came right down to it, I preferred the road, in all its gritty glory.

  I managed to duck back into the church in time to see Ed and Valerie take their vows, and a short time later the ceremony ended and everyone departed for the Grayhall, a historic mansion in Beverly Hills. Ed and Val came out of the church first, and I grabbed two security guards to help them make their exit. I held one security guard with one hand and grabbed Ed with the other. The second guard took Valerie by the arm and whisked her down the church’s endless front staircase. We descended together into a sea of paparazzi, their cameras and video recorders all straining for the perfect wedding shot. To my ear, it sounded like the cameras were all going off at once, the shutters clicking and crackling, the flashbulbs lighting the evening sky as we raced toward our limousine.

  By the time we reached the car, I was becoming dizzy and nauseous from sensory overload; I worried for a moment that I might faint or vomit on the newlyweds, but I took a deep breath as we fought through the crowd and guided the couple into the car. I still can’t put into words the relief I felt when I saw the two of them settling into the leather seats in the back, Valerie adjusting her wedding dress and Eddie, a little shaky but no worse for the wear, grinning mischievously as one of the security guards closed the limo door behind them. I let out a deep sigh before heading with the security guards to the next limo in line. For some reason, the cameras continued to click and crackle, even though Ed and Valerie were safely tucked away. I couldn’t imagine they wanted a picture of me or the guards, but paparazzi are nothing if not relentless.

  As the limo pulled away, I prepared to kick back a bit before the reception. So far, so good, I thought.

  Knock on wood.

  I should have known better than to think the day would be a smooth one. I’d worked closely with Edward for more than three years by this time, and had spent hundreds of days on the road with him. As much as I loved Ed, nothing was ever truly easy with him or with the band. Fun, yes. Rewarding, certainly. But easy? No. Never. From the moment I had heard that Edward was marrying Valerie, I wasn’t sure how any of it would turn out. The paternity suit had been challenging enough, but that was far from the only concern. Valerie’s family was conservative, and I wondered how they would feel about the possibility of their daughter’s wedding day devolving into rock ’n’ roll chaos.