Valerie Bertinelli and Eddie Van Halen's Wedding Day Was Actually Really Sad

From Good Housekeeping

The day 21-year-old Valerie Bertinelli walked down the aisle with rock god Eddie Van Halen, 25, was just another workday for band manager Noel E. Monk. The couple's wedding day, April 11, 1981, was just like any other public performance by Eddie and his Van Halen bandmates, Monk writes in his new book Runnin' with the Devil, and he was there to keep the notoriously rowdy rockers in check.

There was particular concern around how frontman David Lee Roth — who was competitive with Eddie and had always bragged that he was going to marry a movie star — would behave once the booze started flowing. Monk was also worried about Eddie's escalating substance abuse: In the months leading up to the wedding, he'd started doing cocaine in addition to his typical habit of drinking and smoking weed every day. Monk had asked Eddie to exercise restraint at the wedding. "I'll try to stay as straight as I can," he said.

After the ceremony at St. Paul's Catholic Church in Westwood, California, Monk navigated the newlyweds through the ravenous throngs of paparazzi waiting outside, breathing a sigh of relief once they were safely ensconced in their limo. But once the cars started arriving for the reception at the historic Grayhall mansion in Beverly Hills, Eddie and Val were nowhere to be found.

Just eight months earlier, the One Day at a Time star was like millions of other young American women at the time, enthralled by Eddie Van Halen's good looks and guitar prowess. She'd noticed his picture while looking at her brother's copy of the band's album, Women and Children First. When Van Halen played her hometown, Shreveport, Louisiana, in August 1980, Valerie used her connections to get backstage. "I guess she's got a little crush on Edward," the show's promoter told Monk that night.

"It was kind of cute to see them together — they were both clearly nervous and somewhat reticent," writes Monk. "This struck me as a sign of genuine chemistry. After all, Valerie had spent most of her life in front of a camera or audience; she was completely comfortable with all manner of public interaction. And yet, here she was, stammering and blushing like a schoolgirl in the presence of the captain of the football team. And Edward? Here was a guy who went out on stage every night and performed, wizard-like, in front of thousands of adoring fans. In the presence of this young woman, however, the rock star facade melted away."

Though they had a fairytale beginning, their short courtship was a rocky one. Three months into the relationship, Eddie was slapped with a paternity lawsuit from a groupie who claimed he had fathered her child. Valerie's father, an ex-boxer who managed an auto plant and exuded "an air of toughness," phoned Monk when he found out. "Noel, what the hell are we going to do? These two kids are supposed to be getting married in a few months," he said. Even though Monk wasn't entirely sure Eddie wasn't the father, he convinced him to take a paternity test, which turned out to be a smart move: it came back negative.

On their wedding day, Monk found the couple in one of the mansion's upstairs bathrooms, immersed in a scene of "pain and embarrassment," he writes. Eddie was huddled over the toilet bowl while Valerie, still in her white gown, held his hair back. The groom had managed to become intoxicated in the short time since the ceremony ended, and now tears were streaming down his bride's face. Monk stayed for a few minutes to make sure they were okay, while briefly considering telling the few hundred guests who were waiting downstairs that the reception was off.

Valerie, however, was surprisingly strong, writes Monk. "She coaxed Edward to his feet, cleaned him up, straightened his tie, and helped him comb his hair. In her eyes I saw not disappointment but compassion and love ... They emerged from the bathroom hand in hand, and made a glorious entrance into the grand ballroom, where a crowd of family and friends and an assortment of Hollywood stars burst into applause."

Ten years later, in 1991, the couple had a son, Wolfgang Van Halen, but Valerie and Eddie eventually separated in 2001, and finalized their divorce in 2007.

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