Valerie Bertinelli believes she’ll ‘spend a lifetime’ with Eddie Van Halen again someday

For some couples, a breakup means the end. Hard stop. It's over. Not so for actress and cooking show host Valerie Bertinelli and rock legend Eddie Van Halen. They married in 1981, and by the time they finalized their divorce in 2007, they had a son, Wolfgang, who helped make sure they stayed in each other's lives.

"Some of the last words I said to him [are], you know, 'Maybe next time. Maybe we'll get it right next time,'" Bertinelli tells Yahoo Entertainment for our celebrity book series, Under the Covers. "And I really do believe that this is not the first time nor will it be the last time that I spend a lifetime with him."

Van Halen died of cancer on Oct. 6, 2020 at 65, with his wife, Janie, as well as Wolf and Bertinelli by his side.

As Bertinelli writes in her new memoir, Enough Already: Learning to Love the Way I Am Today, which came out Jan. 18, afterward he visited her. "I was drifting in that half-asleep, half-awake place when I sensed a presence in the room. I opened my eyes and there, through the darkness, was Ed," she wrote. "Looking at me. With that Cheshire cat grin of his. Like you asked for it. Here I am. 'What's going on?' I asked. 'Are you really here?'" She described hearing her ex-husband playing music that had a special meaning to them and, though she knew it sounded a little bizarre, feeling very calm and warm, with a sense that things were going to be OK.

Video Transcript

VALERIE BERTINELLI: I wanted to write a book that gave you some steps on finding joy and finding gratitude in your life and also mix it up with a few recipes. I'm really excited to share my new book with you, "Enough Already" on "Under the Covers."

I feel like there's a lot of us, maybe all of us that need to let go of behaviors that don't serve us any longer. And I think there is great power and peace in letting go of this narrative that we are not lovable if we gain weight or if we're not smart enough or if we haven't had enough schooling. None of those things are true.

What really inspired me to write "Enough Already" was I just want to change the script for myself. Every year, it got to be like OK I'm going to lose 10 pounds, 20 pounds, 30 pounds, whatever number. It never made me happy. It's not about losing weight anymore. It's about finding out who I am.

I went about writing that. And then through all of it, COVID was happening. And then my son's father Ed got very sick and ended up passing. It ended up being a book about finding joy and finding the gratitude in your life, even through the most challenging aspects of your life, which for me was the grieving of Wolfie's these dad.

The nice thing about grief, if there is anything nice about it, is that you're left with the love that you felt. That is a stronger feeling than any of the anger or any other feeling that may have been uncomfortable that made your relationship challenging. You get strength and power in your vulnerability and your honesty.

Ed I were always honest about how much we hurt each other, but we always were very honest about how much we loved each other. Some of the last words I said to him were maybe next time. Maybe we'll get it right next time. And I really do believe that this is not the first time, nor it will be the last time that I spend a lifetime with him.

I met Betty over 10 years ago. Maybe that's where the little start of that path of being grateful and living in gratitude and not in misery started. Because I watched this woman, who has been through so many things in her life, she exuded gratitude and kindness. And it wasn't a put-on thing.

And by watching that, it starts to sink in after a while. Like wow, I could try to live that way too. I could do my best, at least. One of my favorite lines that I wrote in the book is, gratitude is the stairway to joy.

I believe cooking for me is self-care. It's self-expression. It's the way I show love. For a long time, I treated food as the enemy. I misused it because I was suppressing emotions I didn't want to feel.

I'll always wish that I was thinner. Just the way I grew up. It's a very hard thing to dig out of me and get out of my soul. But having said that, I also believe that I am more than what that scale tells me. I am more than what size jean I wear.

Again, it comes back to, am I being kind? Am I treating people with respect? Am I doing that same to me?

What is the Einstein quote? Doing the same thing over and over again is the definition of insanity. I'm not going to play the same script anymore. That is exactly what I meant through this title, "Enough Already." I'm not going to do this crazy thing to myself anymore. I'm going to treat myself with kindness and intentionally look for joy, enough already. And also, I am enough already. Just accept yourself for who you are. And you are enough. And I think everybody needs to know that, that they are enough.

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