“Even when we were angry, we stayed loving,” the actress said of Van Halen, who died in 2020 after a battle with cancer.

Valerie Bertinelli recalls Eddie Van Halen saying that ‘letting her go’ was his ‘biggest mistake’

"Even when we were angry, we stayed loving," the actress said of Van Halen, who died in 2020 after a battle with cancer.

By Shania Russell

Shania Russell

Shania Russell is a news writer at *, *with five years of experience. Her work has previously appeared in SlashFilm and Paste Magazine.

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March 10, 2026 12:29 p.m. ET

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Valerie Bertinelli and Eddie Van Halen. Credit:

Valerie Bertinelli is still heartbroken over the loss of her ex-husband, Eddie Van Halen — and she's immortalized their relationship on the page.

In her new memoir, *Getting Naked: The Quiet Work of Becoming Perfectly Imperfect*, Bertinelli reflects on her two-and-a-half-decade marriage to the rock legend, recounting several heartfelt memories with Van Halen.

"It still breaks my heart that he ran out of time, because he was so there," Bertinelli writes of the musician, who died at age 65 in 2020. "He so wanted to be the right person, the good person that he already was. His heart was always pure. He was such a good man."

She goes on to say that Van Halen, with whom she shared a son, spent his final year "making amends" to the people in his life.

Eddie Van Halen and Valerie Bertinelli in 1996.

Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic

"He was cold-calling them. It was sweet— and that was Ed at the core, sweet," she recounts. "He wanted to make it right with me, too. I was told that every time I would walk out of a room, he would look around and say, 'The biggest mistake of my life was letting her go.' In our own way, we never did let go."

After meeting backstage at one of Val Halen's concerts, Bertinelli and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee tied the knot in 1981 and welcomed their son, Wolfgang Van Halen, in 1991. They were married for 26 years before their December 2007 divorce, which Bertinelli describes in *Getting Naked *as "amicable" even during "the most difficult times of our split."

She explains, "We hurt each other's feelings, but we always tried to do the right thing."

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The *Touched By an Angel* star shares that the former couple was very intentional about voicing that love for one another, especially during the final months of Van Halen's treatment for cancer.

"At the last Thanksgiving we shared, he took me outside and opened his heart in a way he said was way past due," she recalls. "We both did. We found a place of deep love and forgiveness for our past mistakes. My final words to him when he was taking his last breaths in the hospital were 'I love you.' I'm so grateful to have had that sense of lightness."

Toward the end of the book, Bertinelli describes their relationship as "a flawed love" but reiterates that it was real. "I knew him for 40 years," she wrote. "Even when we were angry, we stayed loving. It changed, evolved, and grew back different but stronger than it had been at the beginning of our relationship. It healed us."

Eddie Van Halen and Valerie Bertinelli.

Jim Smeal/Getty

Bertinelli previously voiced a similar sentiment on *The Drew Barrymore Show*, where she serves as a lifestyle expert and member of "Drew's Crew." Back in October 2025, she explained that she has never considered her marriage to Van Halen to be a "failure," regardless of the fact that they eventually went their separate ways.

"We grew, we didn't work... but I don't feel like it was a failure because there were many years there that were so happy. And I have Wolfie," she explained on the show. "I just can't think of it as a failure, because I still have deep love for the man even though he's not here."

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A year prior to that, Bertinelli got candid about mourning Van Halen in a now-deleted Instagram video, making it clear that she loved the musician but did not consider him to be her soulmate.

"After Ed died, I was more than willing to put myself in the 'grieving widow' category for a man that I hadn't lived with for 20 years," she shared. "What we had together was this beautiful son that we both unconditionally loved... That's what I got out of that marriage: Wolfie, the best thing that ever happened to me. Not a soulmate."

After ending her marriage to Van Halen, Bertinelli married businessman Tom Vitale in 2011, but the pair split in 2022.

*Getting Naked: The Quiet Work of Becoming Perfectly Imperfect* is now available in stores.

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