Valerie Bertinelli Slams Ex-Employer Food Network for No Longer Focusing on ‘Cooking and Learning’
Valerie Bertinelli is disappointed in many Food Network shows three months after the TV broadcast channel fired her from Kids Baking Championship.
“I fell in love with Food Network two decades ago because of all the amazing ITK (in the kitchen) shows. 30-minute meals, Ina [Garten], Giada [De Laurentiis] … the list goes on,” Bertinelli, 63, wrote via Threads on Tuesday, April 9. “I learned so much. It’s sad it’s not about cooking and learning any longer. Oh well, that’s just business, folks.”
Bertinelli also agreed with cookbook author and food blogger Marlynn Schotland, who lamented via the platform that Food Network no longer has cooking shows and has switched to primarily making culinary competition programs.
Schotland later clarified that Food Network still has “a few” cooking shows and doesn’t “think we need SO MANY new competition shows” that are repetitive of each other.
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Bertinelli, for her part, has a long history with Food Network. She hosted Valerie’s Home Cooking between 2015 and 2025, modernizing her favorite family recipes. She also served as a judge of Kids Baking Championship for 12 seasons and was fired in January due to budget cuts.
“I’ve been avoiding facing what I got confirmation last night and I didn’t want to talk about it last night [because] I wanted to sleep on it because it really hurt my feelings,” she said in an Instagram video. “I know it’s not supposed to. Logically, I know it’s business [and] budget cuts, right? But it really hurt my feelings to know that I’m not going to be asked back to be on Kids Baking Championship.”
She continued, “[That] was my apex year of hell, like, I was going through it and pretending everything was just fine. Because that’s what you do! And without sounding like a drama queen, the show saved my life.”
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Bertinelli filmed her final episodes of Kids Baking Championship in summer 2022, around the same time that she filed for divorce from then-husband Tom Vitale. The actress and Vitale finalized their divorce in November 2022.
“Working with all those really wonderful people and feeling productive and knowing I could spread some kindness and not just wallow in my hell and just try to keep my head above water,” Bertinelli noted in her social media video earlier this year. “[The show] helped me; it was like a flotation device. So, it really hurts that I won’t be able to go back and see everybody and say, ‘Hey, I made it through!’ I think I’m [the] most sad that I won’t be able to tell everybody what they mean to me.”
Since her divorce, Bertinelli has found love again. She revealed in a March interview with USA Today that she’s been dating a “very special” man.
