Valerie Bertinelli has fallen head over heels for a new man she met online.
“I’m in love,” Bertinelli, 63, told People magazine in an interview published on Monday, April 1. “It’s a seesaw of emotions because I was adamant I was never falling in love again.”
The former Food Network host, who didn’t reveal her new man’s identity, joked that she was “supposed to die with my six cats and my dog and very happily live the rest of my years alone — I’m good alone.”
Finding love again, Bertinelli said, “was not supposed to happen.” She became friendly with her new flame years prior after meeting via Instagram. “It was strictly platonic,” she explained, “but there was something about him that I connected with that felt familiar.”
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The twosome began speaking on the phone earlier this year, which is when things took a romantic turn. “It’s crazy the comfort level,” she gushed. “It feels incredibly right. … I found joy first, and then a man entered my life.”
Bertinelli was previously married to Tom Vitale from 2011 to 2022. Two years before her divorce, her first husband, Eddie Van Halen, died at age 65. The former couple were married from 1981 to 2007 and shared son Wolfgang, 33.
While grieving both her marriage to Vitale and the loss of Van Halen, Bertinelli took “a long time” to focus on herself. “I got more intentional about my healing,” she told People. “That meant a lot of walks with [my dog] Luna, a lot of therapy sessions, a lot of learning that I deserve to feel good.”
Bertinelli’s new cookbook, Indulge, was partly inspired by her self-work. “The cookbook was an offshoot of the emotional and mental healing I‘ve been doing,” she explained. “First came the work. Why I thought I didn’t deserve to be loved. Why I was using food to numb my feelings. All the drama and trauma I hadn’t dealt with — with Ed and my last marriage.”
The project became even more valuable than Bertinelli expected. ”I know we’re talking about a cookbook, but this cookbook got me through all of it,” she said.
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Last month, Bertinelli hinted at getting back into dating post-divorce, revealing to USA Today that she’s found someone “very special.”
“It’s unlike any relationship that I’ve ever experienced with a man,” the One Day at a Time star shared. “I don’t want to say too much, but I feel incredibly blessed and lucky to have met him, because I wasn’t expecting it!”
Bertinelli noted that she wasn’t optimistic about falling in love again after her divorce from her husband of nearly 11 years. “I was going to die with my six cats and my dog and be incredibly happy doing it,” she said. “So this came out of left field, and I’m grateful it did.”
Reflecting on the work she’s done on herself, she confessed, “This would not have happened three years ago, four years ago, last year ― it wouldn’t have. And I feel incredibly lucky to have met him and made a connection with him.”
