Valerie Bertinelli liked Eddie Van Halen before she met him. The couple wed for a few months but split after 21 years of marriage and divorced after 26 years.
Both married for the second time, but it seems their love never ended. Eddie Van Halen died in 2020 after a long battle with cancer.
Valerie Bertinelli revealed her regrets after saying farewell to the father of her only son. Here are all the details of Valerie Bertinelli & Eddie Van Halen’s farewell and relationship.
In 1980, Bertinelli met van Halen when her brothers invited her to his concert to help them get backstage. When she saw a picture of van Halen on an 8-track cassette, she decided to go because she thought van Halen was cute.
When she got backstage with her brothers and saw van Halen, Bertinelli said it was love at first sight. Three days later, Bertinelli got a phone call from van Halen asking her to meet him.
After they went out, they never separated from then on. Even though van Halen had a bad-boy image, Bertinelli considered him a gentleman and ensured they slept in separate rooms when they first started dating.
On April 11, 1981, the pair got married, and in an interview, van Halen said that even though he stayed out late and drank, he would never cheat on his wife with groupies.
In 1990, the couple welcomed their son, Wolfgang, named after the prolific classical composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. In the first few years of their marriage, there were rumors that they always fought.
However, the couple stayed together and tried to make their marriage work. Bertinelli and Halen even started to look alike and could mirror each other’s gestures.
Valerie Bertinelli’s Love Life
In October 2001, the couple separated after 20 years of marriage and one son. They finalized their divorce in 2007, and a year later, Bertinelli revealed the real reasons they divorced.
Besides the infidelity that trailed their marriage, Bertinelli and van Halen decided to split because of their son. The couple no longer treated each other like they loved one another, and they didn’t want their son to see that. She said that they shared almost four decades of “love, anger, frustration, and friendship.”
They wanted to give him a better vision of how two people who loved themselves should treat each other. After their divorce, she learned one of the best lessons ever.
Bertinelli learned to forgive because she realized that at one point, she loved van Halen enough to have wanted to spend the rest of her life with him, and it could not have been so terrible to find that one piece of love inside her.
She also hoped that when van Halen got married again and wanted to start a new life, he would take the time to marry someone he considered a friend and not someone he could not keep his hands off.
Bertinelli is also a proud mother and screamed when they nominated her son for the 2022 Grammy Awards. Wolfgang’s song, “Distance,” a tribute to his late father, was nominated for Best Rock Song.
After their divorce, Bertinelli and van Halen both remarried. Bertinelli married a financial planner and entrepreneur, Tom Vitale, on January 1, 2011.
Halen married his girlfriend of three years, a stuntwoman and wrestling manager, Janie Liszewski, on June 27, 2009. Bertinelli attended their wedding while their son was the ring bearer.
On November 24, 2021, Bertinelli filed for divorce from Vitale while citing irreconcilable differences as her reason. They have no kids together, and Bertinelli is not asking for spousal support.
Valerie Bertinelli and Eddie Van Halen’s Farewell
On October 6, 2020, Halen died at 65 after a long and arduous battle with throat cancer. Wolfgang took to his Twitter page to announce the news while saying his father was the best father he could ever need.
Before his death, Halen was quiet about his cancer and often flew to Germany for specialized treatment. In 2019, they hospitalized Halen due to complications with cancer medications.
While he traveled to Germany for his treatments, he once bought Bertinelli a pendant-sized gold bar and handed it to her on Thanksgiving Day in 2019.
He bought her the gift to let her know that he loved her and ruined things when they were married. Bertinelli also agreed to have contributed to their troubles.
However, Bertinelli loved Halen more than she knew how to explain because she loved his soul. After their divorce, the couple remained friends and were there for each other through the happy and rough days.
In the final weeks of his life, Bertinelli and Wolfgang spent every day in the hospital with Halen and his loved ones. Wolfgang and Bertinelli were also there with him in his final moments.
Before he died, he told both of them that he loved them. They were his last words. However, Bertinelli regretted holding back from getting too close to Halen when he was sick.
They were both married at the time, and their marriages were struggling. Bertinelli also knew there was no chance of them getting back together, but if one of them had opened up, the other would too, and she did not want to get into that.
After his death, Bertinelli took to her social media page to say that meeting Halen changed her life forever. She was also grateful for their son, whom she called her one true light.
Months after his death, Bertinelli was still trying to survive her new normal. She described their relationship as “messy,” but remembers only “the best” of him.
She remembers the beautiful moments more than the challenging moments she shared with Halen. Bertinelli hopes to live on through their son, much like Halen’s memory lives on through them both.
On what would have been Halen’s 66th birthday, Bertinelli and Wolfgang celebrated the day, and she looked forward to a next life where they would see him again.
As she went through the stages of grief, Bertinelli constantly reminded herself that grief could be a lesson. She also encouraged her fans to learn a lot through their suffering while having patience with themselves.
