Clois Odell Wharton, father of MÖTLEY CRÜE singer Vince Neil, died on Friday, March 5 at the age of 83.
Neil announced his father’s passing in an Instagram post earlier today (Saturday, March 6). He wrote: “With a broken heart I’m sad to say, we lost a beautiful man last night, my Father Clois Odell Wharton, our beloved ‘Odie’. He died peacefully surrounded by loved ones. He was 83 years young.
“We are going to miss you, Dad. Have fun with Mom and Cali in heaven, RIP 3-5-2021″.
Wharton‘s death comes two and a half years after the passing of Vince‘s mother. A month before her death, the singer revealed that she was in the hospital “battling stage four cancer.”
Last June, Vince said that his five-year-old Yorkshire terrier California Wolf Neil was “brutally murdered” on his front door by “two evil neighbor dogs.”
MÖTLEY CRÜE‘s “The Stadium Tour” with DEF LEPPARD, POISON and JOAN JETT & THE BLACKHEARTS was originally scheduled to take place last summer but ended up being pushed back to 2021 due to the coronavirus pandemic which is sweeping the globe.
When it happens, “The Stadium Tour” will mark the CRÜE‘s first live dates since wrapping its 2014/2015 farewell tour. CRÜE toured with POISON back in 2011 and DEF LEPPARD teamed up with POISON for a string of road dates in 2017 — but the upcoming jaunt marks the first time all four acts have hit the road together for an extended tour.
MÖTLEY CRÜE‘s 2019 biopic “The Dirt” depicts his 1984 drunk-driving accident that killed HANOI ROCKS drummer Nicholas “Razzle” Dingley and seriously injured two others. It also shows Neil’s firing from MÖTLEY CRÜE in 1992, only for his bandmates to rally behind him in 1995 when his four-year-old daughter, Skylar, died of cancer. (He rejoined the group in 1997.)
