By now, you are likely familiar with what happened publicly between American Pickers’ Mike Wolfe and Frank Fritz. The latter wasn’t asked back after personal and physical troubles led to him taking a leave of absence from the series. He’d opened up about his feelings related to being let go from the show, and his former co-stars then were put in a situation where they needed to make statements about where they stood and what had happened. Now, months after the band broke up and Pickers moved on from its earliest iteration, a source has spoken out about the status of that relationship, and it looks like fences haven’t been mended yet.
The two reality TV stars go way back, having grown up together in Davenport, Iowa. For more than a decade Fritz was Wolfe’s foil on TV, but according to what this source told The Sun, things changed over time. Or rather, the source alleges money changed them both in different ways.
Mike hasn’t reached out to Frank, he could care less.They both came from nothing. Money just changed Mike. It changed Frank too.
I can’t say it really shocks me that Mike Wolfe and Frank Fritz haven’t privately made up in the time since Fritz was forced off of the History series. Fritz is out a major source of income after losing his TV gig, and both parties have been vocal about what they feel happened and why, with Wolfe and co-star Danielle Colby noting Fritz’s personal problems exacerbated to the point he was a liability to work with. Per Fritz, though, he got help and was allegedly blindsided by the news the show moved on without him, later calling out Mike Wolfe for his public comments.
When the show moved on, it moved on hard, however. First there were promo photos for the first Fritz-less season of American Pickers solely featuring Wolfe and Colby. But Pickers is a better show when there’s someone for Mike Wolfe to banter with, so it brought his brother Robbie in to fill the gap in Season 23.
To note, American Pickers has also seen a drop in viewership since all this behind-the-scenes drama began to make headlines. The show bring in fewer than a million viewers per episode now, down from the 1.2 million eyeballs that tuned in for Frank Fritz’s final episode in 2020. Fans have also been vocal about American Pickers losing Fritz online.
But Mike Wolfe himself seems to be in a positive place, traveling around with his brother and sharing road trippin’ posts with his pup as well. That's not even counting other business ventures he has in the works.
Wolfe even recently met up with Jason Momoa to film an episode of that star’s upcoming reality show. So, he’s got irons in many fires.
