2024 was a huge year across the board for the entertainment industry, among many other facets of daily living, and many celebs have shared reflective thoughts about the past while keeping a hopeful outlook for the future. One such famed familiar is Mike Wolfe of American Pickers fame, who’d even started the year off by throwing back to the show’s early days alongside co-star Danielle Colby. To bring in 2025, however, Wolfe shared a more personal and heartfelt message with his fans and followers.
As many American Pickers fanatics are well aware, former co-host Frank Fritz died on September 30, 2024, three years after he left the show, but after he and Wolfe allegedly mended the fences from their reported feud that was partially sparked by Wolfe going public with news about Fritz’s stroke in 2022. And while that wasn’t the main point of the creator’s heartfelt post on Instagram, it was no doubt in the mix. Here's what he had to say alongside a photo of himself sitting back on a busted couch with a huge smile on his face:
I chose this photo to post because this is where I’m at right now in my life, happy, content and excited about the future. This past year has brought loss and some heart ache but it also has beautiful moments with my daughter and family. The projects that I have thrown myself into have inspired me to do more. Turning 60 this year has centered me and brought me to a place in my mind that I feel at peace and I love that my circle is getting much smaller so I can be present more with the ones I love.
It can be seen as inspiring that Mike Wolfe is taking the loss and heartbreak that played out in 2024, as well as hitting the benchmark of turning 60, and using that as an impetus to get closer than ever with his loved ones. As it's been said time and again, "You don't know what you've got until it's gone," and that's rarely more applicable than when talking about other people.
Obviously Mike Wolfe wasn't only impacted by grief-related moments in the past year, even if Fritz's death loomed large. American Pickers is currently in its 26th seasons on History, with new episodes hitting the 2025 TV schedule on Wednesday nights at 9:00 p.m. ET, which is a feat that Wolfe likely wouldn't have believed had he been told that right when the show kicked off back in 2010. And it's allowed him the chance to put his efforts into other projects that mean a lot to him, which will hopefully remain the case in years to come.
He continued his Instagram message by reflecting on Pickers' run and why it's continuted to make him embrace traveling across the country and setting up the show's big buys, saying:
I’m incredibly blessed for all of your support. For 15 years now we have been able to tell stories and focus on the history, people, and places that continue to bring us all together. I fall in love with America over and over again when I travel. There is no such thing as a nobody or a place that is nowhere. Now more the ever let’s seek and find common ground. 2025 We got this!!! 🙏
Here's hoping 2025 is just as good to Mike Wolfe & Co. as 2024 was, just without any former or current colleagues passing away in the meantime. And it'd probably be good to avoid death hoaxes like the one Danielle Colby dealt with last year.
