Valerie Bertinelli finds strength after devastating year of health battles and emotional heartbreak
Valerie Bertinelli is getting honest about her weight and why 2024 was "the worst year of my life."
In a recent interview with People, the 65-year-old actress discussed her relationship with her body, saying that while parts of her body could "be more taut," she is happy to be alive.
"I've had this love-hate thing with my body for too many decades. Enough already," she said. "Felt like I was really getting to the final, like, 'Oh, I'm healed.' And then 2024 came, and it was like the worst year of my life."
She explained that she "lost way too much weight in 2024" due to her stress, adding she "had four surgeries within six months" and that her "hair started to fall out," in addition to "having emotional trouble" with people in her life.
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Bertinelli went on to say that she "felt like a failure" following her divorce from financial planner Tom Vitale, and that a series of other unfortunate events left her wondering what she was meant to learn from it all.
"So I lost my job … My parents died. My son's father died, and then the surgeries and like just — I must be really having to learn something because things are really challenging for me right now," she recalled thinking. "Even though I'm still grateful for my life, I just hate that it's this hard right now. And I hate that I'm having these anxiety attacks and that I'm losing my hair and that I can't find a peaceful happiness."
She was previously married to Van Halen guitarist Eddie Van Halen for 20 years before separating in 2001 and divorcing in 2007. Van Halen later died in October 2020 at the age of 65 following a battle with cancer. She was married to Vitale from 2011 to 2022, finalizing the divorce in 2022.
Bertinelli also went through a breakup with her boyfriend, Mike Goodnough, in November 2024, after 10 months of dating.
The "One Day at a Time" star explained to People that she "needed to go through the struggles" in order to believe in herself again and realize that she is "the calm in the choppy sea" and that she needed to "learn from everything that was happening."
"I wasn't happy, but through all that, through like the most difficult year of my life, I still found these great pockets of joy watching [son Wolfgang Van Halen] on stage and watching the audience watch him and watching the audience fall in love with him and getting to do ['The Drew Barrymore Show'], like that was my oasis in a really bad sandstorm," she said.
She continued, "Through all the emotional and physical stuff, I was still able to go, ‘Oh, wait. This is beautiful. Oh, wait. This is wonderful. I can hold on to this so I can get through the hard stuff.’"
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Per People, Bertinelli shared in her new memoir, "Getting Naked," that she got breast implants in the 1980s, which she removed in 2024. Complications following the procedure led to the necessity of more surgeries.
Bertinelli put it all out there for the cover of her memoir, available for purchase on March 10, posing naked on the cover, telling People she "was happy that day because I was like, I'm gonna walk through this fear."
"Part of me also feels like at this age, if I can look that good, I'm like, do it, because that feels really good. And I don't know what I'm going to look like when I'm 80. But at 65, it looks pretty f---ing good," she said. "And I don't think that's arrogant. I think you're allowed to feel good about yourself. I have felt bad about myself for too many decades. I'm going to feel good about myself now."
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Following her lifelong struggle with her body image, Bertinelli shared she is "finally at a comfortable place where my clothes fit."
"They're not too big. They're not too small. They're just – I'm just normal," she said. "I have a body that works. I have a body that wakes up. I can brush my teeth. I can stand up watching my son for two hours on stage, and it's like heaven."