Eagles guitarist Joe Walsh reconnected with daughter after becoming sober: How she found forgiveness
Lucy Walsh has written a new book, ‘Remember Me As Human: What Three Final Days with My Grandmother Wanda Taught Me About Truly Living’
Lucy Walsh was just 12 years old when she really got to know her biological father, Eagles guitarist Joe Walsh.
At the time, the rocker had gotten sober and went back to work with the band after living in the fast lane for years.
“Before that, I didn’t know him very well,” the actress and fellow musician told Fox News Digital. “I would see him maybe once a year, and it was like Christmas. Getting to see my dad this one time of year was just so exciting. But then he would go away again, and I wouldn’t know when the next time I was going to see him was.”
“So, when he got sober, and I was 12, my life changed,” she shared. “My dad wasn’t working that much in the music business. He’d been very famous before that. But during my young life, he wasn’t very active. And then when he rejoined the Eagles, I realized my dad is … a very big deal. And it was shocking to me. I write about it in the book as being one of the first concerts they played [at the time].”
The 41-year-old has written a new memoir, “Remember Me as Human: What Three Final Days with My Grandmother Wanda Taught Me About Truly Living.” It explores her relationship with her maternal grandmother, Wanda, before she died in 2011. The matriarch passed away four months after Walsh interviewed her in her nursing home.
In the book, Walsh reflects on her life, including her relationship with her father, 76.
“I had always heard stories about my dad from the press,” she admitted. “Kids would bring magazines to school with pretty disturbing information. And I had never spoken to him about these things. But as I got to know him as a person … it’s the same thing that I realized with my grandmother. I got to know his humanity. I got to see him as a full person, not just my dad or some guy in these magazine stories. … It’s seeing your parents as a person, as a human. Forgiving them for their trespasses is what I think becoming an adult is about. It’s about granting them empathy and mercy for things you think might’ve been mistakes in the past.”
“With Dad, it’s been a lot because he’s in the public eye,” Walsh continued. “His mistakes get printed in the news. And so, there’s been a lot of hearsay that I have been able to talk through now with him as an adult and come to terms with who he really is. And love him for who he is.”
Joe joined the Eagles after becoming friends with Don Henley and Glenn Frey, People magazine reported. As the band skyrocketed to fame, so did his dependence on drugs and alcohol. When the group broke up in 1980, Walsh’s addiction worsened. According to the outlet, he turned to alcohol to cope with severe stage fright.
The outlet noted that in 1994, Henley and Frey had plans to get the Eagles back together, and they would only do it with a sober Walsh. The pair, as well as manager Irving Azoff, approached Walsh with their proposition, and they eventually reunited for the album “Hell Freezes Over.”
In the book, Walsh described seeing her father on stage for the first time.
“It was a live televised taping for VH1,” she recalled. “I was sitting in the audience between Whoopi Goldberg and Claudia Schiffer … the roar of that audience just brought me to tears. I was just so overwhelmed by it all. And then we spent a lot of great time together.”
“I’ve got to thank my mother,” Walsh shared. “She never spoke badly about my father to me, which a lot of women do with their children. And I’m very grateful that she gave me that gift because I didn’t have any negativity about my dad in my head. She always told him, ‘When you get sober, I’ll be right there to make sure that you and Lucy have a relationship.’ And she really did. She made it possible for my dad and I to become very close after that.”
Walsh said that her grandmother’s upbringing in Illinois changed her viewpoint on fame. Sitting down with Wanda during her final months, in particular, taught her that fame is just “smoke and mirrors.” Famous people are just people with their own problems.
“I remember when I was 12, [my dad] bought the red Mustang from one of the James Bond movies, and we would drive it around,” said Walsh. “I would think, ‘We can speed because he’s invincible. Nothing can hurt us because he’s famous.’ … But my mom’s side of the family lived such a normal life that it changed my perspective on fame.”
Leave a Reply