Valerie Bertinelli has been a mainstay of the entertainment industry for six decades, having first risen to prominence as a child star on the long-running US sitcom One Day at a Time.
After making the jump to become an actress as an adult through TV shows such as Touched by an Angel and Hot in Cleveland, she later reinvented herself as a TV host with her own cooking shows and more recently as a lifestyle expert on The Drew Barrymore Show.
But her personal life has been far from perfect, with her two marriages ending in divorce. Nowadays, she shares a close relationship with her only child, Wolfgang, from her first marriage to rocker Eddie Van Halen.
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Rise to fame
Bertinelli was born in the US state of Delaware on April 23, 1960, to father Andrew, a General Motors executive, and mum Nancy. Her father’s father left his first wife and son behind in Italy to start a new life in the US before marrying her grandmother.
The family moved around often before settling in Los Angeles, where she studied acting.
As a child she appeared in an episode of a TV show before she won a role in the sitcom One Day at a Time as one of two teenage daughters of a single mum.
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The show was a hit when it first aired in 1975, and made a star out of Bertinelli, who was then just 15.
Bertinelli won two Golden Globes for her portrayal of Barbara Cooper. She remained with the show until it ended in 1984.
Eddie Van Halen
During the show’s run, Bertinelli began dating Eddie Van Halen of the rock band Van Halen.
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USA Today reported the two met in 1980 after she had gone to stay with her parents in Louisiana during an actors’ strike.
She scored a backstage pass to a Van Halen concert after seeing a photo of her future husband.
“I saw what he looked like and I’m like, ‘OK, I’ll go, this guy’s cute,'” she said. “So I went, and there we go. It was love at first sight, for sure.”
The two married eight months later, on April 10, 1981, days before Bertinelli turned 21.
While Van Halen was known for his wild partying ways, Bertinelli admitted she was no angel in the early days of their marriage.
“I am a prude now, but I [partook] as well for a few years there until I just couldn’t take it anymore,” she told Today.
Their only child, son Wolfgang Van Halen, was born in March 1991.
After One Day at a Time ended in 1984, Bertinelli continued to work steadily.
In 2001, she scored a starring role in the fantasy drama Touched by an Angel, which ran until 2003.
However, Van Halen’s dependence on alcohol and drugs, his infidelity, and refusal to stop smoking after being diagnosed with tongue cancer in 2000 all contributed to the end of their marriage.
They separated in 2001 and divorced in 2007.
Second marriage
Three years later, Bertinelli announced her engagement to financial planner Tom Vitale.
The two had been dating since 2004 and married on New Year’s Day 2011, in Malibu, with her former husband among the wedding guests.
In 2010, she was cast alongside Jane Leeves, Wendie Malick and Betty White in the sitcom Hot in Cleveland, which ran for six seasons.
In 2012, Bertinelli was honoured with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
New career
After the show ended, Bertinelli reinvented herself as a television host on the US cable Food Network.
Her cooking show, Valerie’s Home Cooking, ran from 2015 to 2023. She also hosted reality TV show Kids Baking Championship.
In 2024, she became a lifestyle expert on The Drew Barrymore Show.
Towards the end of their marriage, Van Halen had a third of his tongue removed to rid him of a squamous cell carcinoma. He got the all clear but went on to battle throat, brain and lung cancer.
Former husband’s death
He defied doctors predictions in 2017 that he only had weeks to live, before eventually dying in 2020, with Bertinelli and their son among those by his side.
Just this year, Bertinelli admitted that after his death, she turned their relationship “into some sort of fantasy, soulmate recreation of history.”
However, she has since recognised this was not the case.
“[It was] nothing that makes you feel loved and wanted and cared for. Nothing that would scream soulmate, that’s for sure,” she said.
“But after Ed died, I was more than willing to put myself in the grieving widow category for a man that I hadn’t lived with for 20 years.
“What we had together was this beautiful son that we both unconditionally loved. That’s what I got out of that marriage was Wolfie… not a soulmate.”
Despite this, she said they loved each other until the end, and these were the last words he spoke to her and Wolfgang before his death.
Meanwhile, Bertinelli filed for legal separation from Vitale in November 2021. Their divorce was finalised a year later.
Last month, Bertinelli took to Instagram to mark ”two years of freedom.”
The star dated writer Mike Goodnough this year for about six months but is now single.
Mental health battles
She is vocal about her battle with body image and anxiety.
Just last month she took to Instagram to reveal she had suffered a panic attack.
She said the attack left her shaking and “weeping uncontrollably, and my heart felt like it was pounding out of my chest.”
“I’m posting because we’re all out here doing our best having a human experience and none of us want to feel like we’re alone in that,” she said.
She also took to Instagram recently to mark the eighth anniversary of her father’s death and lament that it was her relationships with both her father and grandfather that had drawn her to “complicated men” throughout her life.
“Men have mystified me ever since,” she wrote. “I witnessed that they could be kind and yet scary, never knowing which I was going to get.”
Bond with son
One man with whom she enjoys a close relationship is Wolfgang, now 33 and a musician, whom she described recently as “the best thing that ever happened to me.”
They are so close her Instagram handle is @wolfiesmom.
He was Van Halen’s bassist from 2007 until 2012 and later partnered with Mark Tremonti of Creed fame.
He now fronts his own rock band, Mammoth WVH, and his mother starred in one of the band’s music videos last year.
Bertinelli reportedly has a net worth of about $AUD30 million and lives in Los Angeles, not far from her son and his wife of one year Andraia Allsop.
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