Credit: Kevin FoleyLess than a month after he revealed that he’d been diagnosed with stage four esophageal cancer, Eddie Money has died. He was 70.
The rocker, best known for his hits “Baby Hold On,” “Two Tickets to Paradise,” “Shakin'” and “Take Me Home Tonight,” passed away on Friday. On last night’s episode of his AXS TV reality show Real Money, Money revealed his diagnosis, though he’d made the news public at the end of August in a preview clip.
In a statement, his family said, “The Money Family regrets to announce that Eddie passed away peacefully early this morning. It is with heavy hearts that we say goodbye to our loving husband and father. We cannot imagine our world without him. We are grateful that he will live on forever through his music.”
Born in Brooklyn, New York, and raised on Long Island, New York, Money was an NYPD trainee before moving to California in 1968 to pursue music. After scoring a record contract, he released his self-titled first album, which featured his signature hits “Baby Hold On” and “Two Tickets to Paradise.”
His fourth album No Control was a big hit on the strength of two singles that received heavy airplay on MTV: “Think I’m in Love” and “Shakin’.”
After an unsuccessful period that saw him struggle with drug addiction, Money made a huge comeback with the 1986 single “Take Me Home Tonight,” a duet with Ronnie Spector which featured her singing the hook from her classic song with The Ronettes, “Be My Baby.” It reached #4 on the charts.
Money scored a few more rock and pop hits, including “I Wanna Go Back,” “Walk on Water” and “The Love in Your Eyes.”
In recent years, Money took advantage of his pop culture status to star in a GEICO insurance commercial in which he sang “Two Tickets to Paradise;” he also appeared as himself on the sitcom The King of Queens.
In 2018, Real Money, which featured Eddie, his wife Laurie and their five adult children, debuted. It was renewed for a second season, which recently premiered.
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