"We weren’t really good to each other at a lot of points in our lives because we met so young and were very immature."
Editor's note: This article was originally published on January 21, 2022. It has since been updated.
Valerie Bertinelli and ex-husband Eddie Van Halen got married when they were both young. They've had some rough patches, but thankfully, Bertinelli and Van Halen managed to clear the air and part amicably before his death, and Bertinelli is grateful for being at peace with the legendary rock guitarist before he passed.
"We went through a lot of hell as well," Bertinelli told Hoda Kotb on TODAY. "We weren’t really good to each other at a lot of points in our lives because we met so young and were very immature. But I’m so happy that we were able to come to a beautiful place by the end of his life. I wish he was still here."
Bertinelli, 61, wrote about her heartbreaking final moments with Van Halen before his death in her book, Enough Already: Learning to Love the Way I Am Today. She also wrote about her recent separation from her second husband in her book that went on sale on January 18, 2022.
The Food Network host was married to Van Halen from 1981 to 2007. In the book, she wrote about saying goodbye to the guitarist when he died at 65, in October 2020, from cancer.
She and their son, Wolfgang, 30, were by his side in his final moments. “I love you are the last words Ed says to Wolfie and me and they are the last words we say to him before he stops breathing," Bertinelli shared in her book.
Despite having a failed marriage, the two of them remained close to each other. "The love we have always had for each other proved stronger and more resilient than anything else," she shared. "We chose to remain friends and family.”
She then spoke to Kotb about how grateful she is to have her son in her life. "I think soul mates, I think we have more than just one," Bertinelli said. "I think that partly Wolfie is a soul mate of mine. When I think of soul mates, I think of souls that come here to experience this life on Earth together again and get to a higher place. I definitely, definitely know that was part of Ed. I loved his soul deeply."
During the show, she also opened up about how her second marriage to Tom Vitale came to an end, as she filed for legal separation from her husband of 11 years in November 2021.
"I also want to be gentle and caring, and not just rip off a Band-Aid," she said. "I like to pull it off gently. But I think there is definitely power and peace in changing your narrative and changing the way that you can look at your life. I know it is for me. When I changed the way I looked at my life and stopped beating myself up most of the time, there is power in that and peace."
References:
Cover Image Source: Getty Images | Photo By Kevin Winter
