Alex Van Halen Gets Knighted, Reunites With David Lee Roth, Calls Sammy Hagar “A Complete Idiot”

Van Halen Had Quite the Summer. On Tuesday (Sept. 1), Alex Van Halen was knighted in The Netherlands. The Van Halen drummer was appointed a Knight in the Order of the Netherlands Lion, one of the country's highest civilian honors, during a ceremony in Nijmegen, the city where Alex and his brother Eddie spent much of their childhood before their family moved to the United States. Mayor Hubert Bruls presented Alex with the royal honor at the Berchmanianum, the academy building of Radboud University.And that seems like as good a place as any to start, because the past few months have been busy for Van Halen news.On July 30, Alex Van Halen appeared alongside David Lee Roth at TEDxFargo, marking the first public appearance together by the former bandmates since Van Halen's final show in 2015. The two were interviewed by artist Robert Vargas, who said the conversation will eventually be released on YouTube. For Van Halen fans, simply seeing Alex and Diamond Dave together again was notable enough, but the timing made the appearance even more interesting.Just one week earlier, Roth cancelled all his remaining 2026 tour dates, reportedly because of low ticket sales. The one exception was hi...