Eddie Van Halen Admitted Letting Valerie Bertinelli Go Was His ‘Biggest Mistake’ in Final Days
Valerie Bertinelli and Eddie Van Halen were married for close to 30 years. After they divorced, they both moved on to other marriages, but they still held on to love for each other. Bertinelli said that Van Halen made amends with people before his 2020 death. She said he called her to express regret over the end of their relationship.
Eddie Van Halen said he regretted the end of his relationship with Valerie Bertinelli
While Bertinelli and Van Halen divorced in 2007, they held on to love for one another. She said his death devastated her.
“It still breaks my heart that he ran out of time, because he was so there,” she wrote in her book Getting Naked: The Quiet Work of Becoming Perfectly Imperfect (per Entertainment Weekly). “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.”
Bertinelli noted that her former husband spent the final year of his life “making amends” with the people in his life. She heard that he wanted to make amends with her, too. He expressed regret over the end of their marriage.
“He was cold-calling them. It was sweet— and that was Ed at the core, sweet,” she wrote. “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.”
Why did Eddie Van Halen and Valerie Bertinelli separate?
While reflecting on her marriage as she wrote her memoir, she said she has come to view their relationship differently over time.
“I met Ed when I was 20. I was too young to know better. I know that I might get in trouble for saying this, but I’m going to say it anyway because maybe somebody else feels this way — I wish I knew then what I know now,” she told People, adding, “I wish I had more compassion back then.”
She didn’t think things would have ended differently between them, even with her changed perspective.
“We still probably would’ve divorced, because he wasn’t ready to get sober, and I had to protect Wolfie.”
Still, she said she has never loved someone as much as Van Halen.
“Would we have ever been intimate together again? I really don’t think so. But I’ve never loved another man the way I loved Ed. And that’s just the way it is.”
She said she always had love for him
While both Bertinelli and Van Halen had second marriages, she believes that what they had was particularly special.
“There’s something deeper there,” she said. “It doesn’t take away the love he had in his second marriage. It doesn’t take the love away that I had in my second marriage. There is just something about Ed and I that was special.”
She said his role as her father’s child made their relationship more special.
“And even though we weren’t married any longer, I still loved him,” she said. “He still loved me, and that’s okay. You can love the father of your child. Isn’t it better than hating him? So yeah, I loved him. [There will] always be a huge part in my heart for him. It doesn’t mean I don’t have room for other love, but I loved Ed and still do.”
