Meat Loaf

Written and Produced by Jason Goodman

Meat Loaf’s Behind The Music was the fourth episode I produced, and the first one I did after VH1 realized it had a hit on its hands. I just remember the intensity level went up a notch on this show – when I did the interview with Meatloaf, there were any number of executives hanging out and generally getting in the way. I guess that’s the price of success – and shooting in Los Angeles.

But Meat Loaf’s story – from unlikely success to alcoholism to madness to redemption – was ideal fodder for Behind The Music. The story arc seemed so perfect that as I was writing the show, I worried that the Behind The Music formula was becoming a cliché just a few months into the show’s run. I was right about that, but I didn’t need to worry about it with Meatloaf. He created his melodrama the old fashioned way – he lived it.

Click here to watch my favorite act. Click here to watch the whole show.











Behind The Music: Meat Loaf • my favorite act •  Written and Produced by Jason Goodman

Every once in a while when you’re telling someone’s life story, you run up against a deep dark secret. In Meat Loaf’s case, it revolved around the real date that Meat met his wife, Leslie. When I was doing the interview, I pointed out a discrepancy that didn’t make sense. Meat shrugged it off, but when we took a break a few minutes later he asked me to join him in the next room and told me they had told a different version of their meeting to their eldest daughter, Pearl, and asked me to stick to their not-completely-factual version.

It’s not the only time I’ve been asked to do this, and I always ask myself how it affects the larger story. In this case it didn’t really affect it at all, so I stuck to Meat’s dates. If you’re worried that I just blew his secret here, let it go – I met Pearl at a party years later and she told me that her dad had finally told her the truth.

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[watch the whole show].














Behind The Music • Meat Loaf • Written, Produced and Directed by Jason Goodman

The timing of Meatloaf’s Behind The Music was kismet for both VH1 and Meat –Bat Out of Hell II sold over 100,000 copies in the weeks following the show’s debut. But that doesn’t mean life would get easier for Meat. His relationship with Jim Steinman continued to be difficult, and Meat ended up suing Jim for 50 million dollars before they finally reached a settlement in 2005. That agreement made what Meat’s wife Leslie had joked about at the end of the show – Bat Out of Hell 3 – possible, but by its 2006 debut, Leslie was no longer around to celebrate – Meat and Leslie divorced in 2001.


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