How David Lee Roth Almost Ruined a Marriage Without Ever Even Meeting the Couple
If I told you that Van Halen vocalist David Lee Roth nearly ruined a couple’s marriage, your reply might very well be, “Well, yeah, duh. He’s David Lee Roth. He’s probably ruined MULTIPLE marriages.” A fair assumption, to be sure.
But the marriage at the center of this particular story is unique, because it doesn’t involve any infidelity. In fact, the couple in question never even knew David Lee Roth. Neither wife nor husband has ever met the storied singer, let alone slept with him.
So how did DLR manage to so royally screw shit up for them?
The hilarious tale comes courtesy of The Washington Post‘s Nancy French. Ms. French married her husband, David, sometime around 1996, when she was twenty. The couple’s courtship was so brief that her mother referred to him not as “my daughter’s fiancé” but as a “rank stranger,” and his friends “held a tearful intervention” to try and talk him out of the marriage. But the two were crazy kids in love… and we all know what those are like. And so they ignored all the pleas from family and friends and tied the knot anyway.
That’s when the phone calls began:
“A few hours later, it rang again. Another woman. I dusted near the phone, so I could eavesdrop. Did my seemingly loyal husband have a double life?
“Another wrong number, he said. I believed him, until the phone rang at 3 a.m. And 4. The calls became more regular, at all hours of the day and night. It got so common, I was no longer surprised when the breathy voices on the other end of the line morphed into sighs of disappointment.
“He always got off the phone, exasperated. Or was it an act?
“I took messages when he was out. Desiree. Brandy. Jill. In some cases, they were testy when I said he wasn’t there. One woman started crying.”
Ms. French became understandably suspicious of her new husband, who continued to deny all wrongdoing, even after matching one caller’s physical description.
And that might have indeed spelled doom for the young couple’s relationship… if Nancy didn’t then receive another call for her husband, only this time from a man. He seemed shocked to hear of the nuptials and asked Nancy if she was pregnant, asserting that “A kid will really hurt our comeback.”
See where this is going? No? Well…
“There’d been a big mix-up. Apparently, David Lee Roth] had changed his number right before we moved to Manhattan but still gave out his old number to women he met but wanted to let down easily. Later that year, he appeared on MTV with Van Halen. When rumors of them getting back together started flying, our phone rang with congratulations and invitations to exclusive parties.
“That’s how — for a brief period of time — we became David Lee Roth’s answering service and romantic liaison… At one point, we even fielded a call from Roth’s dad.”
Holy shit, that is AMAZING. I’ve never been so jealous of someone getting wrong number calls in my life. Assuming David Lee Roth ever gets wind of this story — and I can’t see how he won’t get wind of it — I’d say he probably owes Nancy and David a belated wedding gift by way of apology, wouldn’t you?
Read the entire story here. David Lee Roth has a residency at the House of Blues in Las Vegas this month, and then he’ll go on tour in support of Kiss. Get all dates and tickets here.
[via Bring Back Glam!]
