At this point, Jeffries and Winnick started drinking. The friends were led through to the backstage area of Detroit’s 12,000 seat Cobo Arena, where they met Eddie Van Halen and his wife, television star Valerie Bertinelli. Although the weekend was off to a promising start, nobody could see what was coming next. Upon arrival, they were led to a room on the eighth floor of the Hotel Pontchartrain that was decked out in backstage passes, promotional Van Halen merch, and various porno magazines. Jeffries and Winnick were ushered by limo to the Philadelphia International Airport, where a seven-seat Learjet waited to take the young men to Detroit. It was assumed that Jeffries would take his girlfriend but instead, he opted to bring along Tom Winnick, a lifelong friend who was working at a gas station while attending a nearby community college. The second Jeffries was announced as the winner of the contest, offers started coming in from people willing to pay thousands in cash, buy him a motorcycle and/or trade him sexual favors for his extra ticket. When Jefferies left the hospital, it was with anti-seizure medication and a plate in his head. The young man’s intensive rehabilitation program included speech, physical, and occupational therapy. He’d recently suffered major head trauma after falling down a staircase, leaving the 20-year-old hospitalized for three months with a blood clot on his brain. As everyone would soon find out, Jefferies wasn’t just your ordinary kid. The winner wound up being Kurt Jefferies, a college student who sent in a total of eight entries.

MTV received more than ten million postcards for the contest.

You’ll have no idea where you’re going and probably no memory of it after you go.” With a title that served as a tongue-in-cheek play on the classic alcoholism drama film The Lost Weekend, a promo commercial for the contest shows David Lee Roth and two groupies, with the frontman saying: “You’ll have no idea where you are. Supporting their hit sixth album, 1984, the band enlisted MTV to stage the promotional contest to end all promotional contests.

Eddie van halen wife