Meat Loaf’s daughters have each paid tribute to the Bat Out of Hell singer, saying he was “a complex man with a lot of passion” and that he will be loved “forever”.
Meat Loaf, born Marvin Lee Aday (which he later legally changed to Michael Lee Aday), died on Thursday.
His eldest child, Pearl Aday, who performed with her father as part of his live band for a decade, posted a picture on her Instagram account on Saturday, showing her hugging her father from behind.
"I love you always, no matter what. I love you with my whole heart,” she wrote in the photo’s caption. “We got you. Forever.”
Pearl’s younger sister, Amanda, told People that their father was a "complex man with a lot of passion, who wore his heart on his sleeve”.
She recalled “having all of these experiences” with her father as they travelled around the world, visiting concert arenas and growing up on tour buses.
But when the family returned home, “he was just dad. He wasn’t Meat Loaf any more.”
"If we didn't get good grades, we were grounded, and all of that stuff," she said. "So, it was very much, when we weren't out on tour living this crazy life, it was very important to him that we were grounded in our home.
"Growing up, when we were little, he always said he never wanted to be hip," she said. "Pearl and I would want a new pair of shoes or something, whatever was in trend, fashion-wise or whatever, and he'd always say, 'Don't be trendy. Don't be hip. Be cool, because cool is always.' And that was him."
Meat Loaf may be recognised as one of the greatest rock singers and performers of all time, but according to Amanda, he was not fond of the title “rock star”.
”He would want me to say, 'I'm not a rock star. I'm not a legend. I'm a singer, I'm an actor, I'm a lot of things, but I'm not those two words.'"
"That's how he performed," she said. "And that's why his performances, his live performances, were unlike anything else, because in his mind, in his heart and his soul every night, he was giving you a Broadway performance. He wasn't just coming out and singing songs from an album … It was a show.”
Amanda said she and her sister travelled to Nashville to be with their father after being informed that his health “was declining very rapidly, more rapidly than expected".
"As soon as we could, we just went to his bedside at the hospital and just sat with him and held his hand," Aday recalled, saying she is "very thankful" that both she and her sister had a chance to see their father before he died.
Meat Loaf died while surrounded by family and some of his closest friends, Amanda said.
People travelled from across the US to be with the singer in his final moments. Amanda said he was very much himself up until the end.
"He flipped a couple of us off, which is very dad, very appropriate," she said. "That's a good sign. He's there. He's joking."
