Valerie Bertinelli's Complicated Relationship Timeline

Valerie Bertinelli made a name for herself in the 1970s, starring as the adorable Barbara Cooper on the sitcom "One Day at a Time." Her girl-next-door looks and her down-to-earth personality garnered her plenty of fans and many more acting roles, including TV movies and popular series such as "Touched by an Angel" and "Hot in Cleveland." She eventually took her talents to the reality TV world, starring in cooking shows like "Kids Baking Championship" and "Valerie's Home Cooking."

Over the years, she earned two Daytime Emmy Awards, two Golden Globes, and a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. She is also the author of five books and was a spokesperson for Jenny Craig, inspiring people on their weight loss and self-discovery journeys. Some might see Bertinelli as having had a charmed life after her stunning transformation into stardom, but the turmoil in her personal relationships tells a different story. Flings, divorces, painful breakups, and heartbreaking losses have made Valerie Bertinelli's love life a complicated one. Read on to learn more about the multi-talented actor's complex relationships and how she has kept her signature smile through it all.

During the time that "One Day at a Time" was on the air, young Valerie Bertinelli also auditioned for films, including Steven Spielberg's "Raiders of the Lost Ark" in 1980. She didn't get the part, but she did catch the eye of the director. In 2008, Bertinelli spoke to Oprah Winfrey about her brief romance with Spielberg, explaining, "I went up to read for Raiders of the Lost Ark, which I was so wrong for, way too young for... And the next day I got a call and some flowers ... [Spielberg] asked me out. We went out a few times, um, and did more" (via HuffPost).

The tabloids speculated about their relationship, but according to Bertinelli, it wasn't that serious. "Even though the tabloids reported that Steven and I had a 'special love,' and 'we were talking about marriage,' we knew it was a fling," the actor wrote in her memoir "Losing It: And Gaining My Life Back One Pound at a Time."

There were factors that would keep her and Spielberg from the altar, their different religions being one of them. "I met his mother, and I knew he wasn't going to marry someone who wasn't Jewish," Bertinelli wrote. But the final nail in the coffin had to do with food. "One night, as we made pasta for dinner, I started to chop up garlic and Steven said, 'No. Stop. No garlic.' ... I thought, 'Are you kidding me? I can't date a guy who won't eat garlic.'"

Soon after Valerie Bertinelli and Steven Spielberg went their separate ways, the actor met her first husband and longtime love, Eddie Van Halen. Eddie was the guitarist for the wildly popular band Van Halen, and Bertinelli's brothers convinced her to go to a concert in the hopes of using her star power to get backstage. According to Bertinelli, it didn't take much convincing. "I took a look at the 8-track cassette that was in the back of my Corvette ... and I saw a picture of Ed, and I went, 'Oh, yeah, I'll be going. He's a cutie,'" she shared with Oprah.

Seeing Eddie Van Halen in person did not disappoint. "You had to peel me off the floor," Bertinelli said. He called her three days later, and the pair became inseparable. Bertinelli was just twenty years old at the time, and she said that the rock star treated her with the utmost respect, even making sure they slept in separate rooms at the beginning of their relationship. Despite her nice girl image, things weren't as they seemed. "He was the good one," the actor told Oprah. "I was the bad one."

In April 1981, Valerie Bertinelli and Eddie Van Halen tied the knot. The actor and the rock star seemed like the perfect couple, but their marriage had problems right from the start. Even on their wedding day, Van Halen got so intoxicated that Bertinelli had to help him pull himself together. Bertinelli said she felt pressure to keep up with her new husband's lifestyle, and the two would often stay up late partying. "It got to a point whenever I heard the birds chirp, it was, "Oh, God, no.' It took me years after stopping the cocaine before I could enjoy a sunrise and enjoy the sound of birds," she told Oprah.

The marriage was also marred by infidelity. Bertinelli admitted that she strayed in her memoir "Losing It." "I was infatuated with the drummer of this band [who] was friends of my brother," she wrote. "I just wanted somebody to touch me and love me. And I wasn't getting it at home." But her husband was unfaithful as well. In her book, Bertinelli describes a phone call she received from a man who was angry his wife had been cheating on him with Van Halen. "When I got off, I was crying but I was like, 'I can't believe I just had that conversation,'" she revealed. "Welcome to my life."

The couple tried working things out in therapy, and they welcomed their son, Wolfgang, in 1991, but the union wasn't built to last. Bertinelli and Van Halen separated in 2001 after twenty years of marriage.

Valerie Bertinelli and Eddie Van Halen's marriage officially ended in divorce in December 2007. According to Bertinelli, one of the main reasons the couple split for good was for the sake of their son, Wolfgang. "Ed and I weren't treating each other like two people that loved each other, and that's what Wolfie was seeing," she wrote in "Losing It."

Although there are many tragic details about Bertinelli and Van Halen's relationship, they remained close enough to co-parent their son, and developed a friendship over the years. Their bond seemed to grow even stronger once Van Halen was diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer in 2017. Initially, he was given just weeks to live, and he traveled to Germany to seek treatment. In her 2022 book, "Enough Already: Learning to Love the Way I Am Today," Bertinelli recalled a time in 2019 when her ex gifted her with a gold pendant he'd bought for her in Germany. "I hope you don't think it's weird, you know, that I bought my ex-wife this gift and didn't get my wife anything," he said tearfully, "I just love you" (via People).

Van Halen's heartbreaking death in 2020 was difficult for Bertinelli, having shared so much of her life with him. "I can't explain the feelings Ed and I had for each other," she wrote. "I loved him more than I know how to explain and there's nothing sexual about it. It was more than that. And Ed and I understood that."

In 2004, while Valerie Bertinelli was separated from Eddie Van Halen, she met her next husband, financial planner Tom Vitale. Bertinelli's brother made the introduction while the actor was visiting family in Arizona. According to Vitale, who was recently divorced at the time, he and Bertinelli were both a bit hesitant to get serious with someone new. "Val and I were coming from a tough time and wanting to move on but didn't want to trust anyone," he shared with AARP. But the two hit it off and bonded over their shared Italian heritage. "My family is her family," Vitale said. "It wasn't love at first sight; it was family at first sight."

Bertinelli, who famously struggled with her weight over the years, found a new level of self-acceptance through her relationship with Vitale. "I've never felt more beautiful at any weight than when Tom looks at me," she told AARP. "He loved me no matter what. In his way, he's teaching me to love myself just as I am."

In 2010, Vitale proposed to Bertinelli in Florence, Italy. Bertinelli was surprised, even though the pair had been dating for six years. Although Bertinelli was furious with Vitale the night he proposed, she still fondly recalled the event. "We'd talked about getting married, but I was still shocked," she told People. "It was sweet when he asked me, because he was so scared. I was like, 'Are you kidding me?'"

On January 1, 2011, Valerie Bertinelli and Tom Vitale were married in a ceremony at their home in Malibu, California. Guests included Bertinelli's ex-husband, Eddie Van Halen, and their son, Wolfgang, as well as "Hot in Cleveland" co-stars Jane Leeves and Wendy Malick, and her pals from "One Day at a Time," Mackenzie Phillips and Pat Harrington. Bertinelli was over the moon and told People, "I could have spent the rest of my life with Tom and not be married, but I wanted to call him 'my husband.'"

The couple appeared to be a perfect match, and Bertinelli gushed about life with her new husband often. "He's funny, and he's really good in bed," she told Good Housekeeping, adding that she and Vitale liked to walk around naked while at home together. But the couple shared more than just a physical attraction. They genuinely cared for one another and liked to do little things to keep each other happy. "She wants me to put the seat down on the toilet. So, I do. It's just nicer for her," Vitale told Good Housekeeping.

Bertinelli and Vitale also shared a love of food and enjoyed cooking together. "When I saw how much passion Tom put into his cooking, I thought, Oh, OK, he's a giver," the actor revealed during an interview with Prevention.

While Valerie Bertinelli and Tom Vitale appeared to have finally gotten it right, it turned out their union was not built to last. In November 2021, after ten years of marriage, Bertinelli took a huge step in her personal life and filed for legal separation from Vitale, citing irreconcilable differences.

It seems as though the relationship had turned into something that was no longer serving Bertinelli. "We became very unkind to one another and that's not a way to live in a marriage," she revealed to People. "That was just the breaking point for me, where I finally decided I've had enough. I was continuing to tolerate intolerable things, starting with my own words in my own head." The couple's divorce was finalized in November 2022.

During a 2024 appearance on "The Drew Barrymore Show," Bertinelli showed she had done some serious reflecting on her life and relationships, understanding that her childhood played a part in her struggles. "I can't just blame my ex-husband for a toxic, horrible marriage, it's not his fault," she said. "What led me to that? Oh, childhood. That's the stuff I gotta start working on."

In March 2024, Valerie Bertinelli revealed she had found love once again. Although she did not initially share the identity of her new man, the actor told People, "I'm in love. It's a seesaw of emotions because I was adamant I was never falling in love again." She went on to joke that she figured she'd end up alone with her six cats and her dog and was surprised to have met someone new. "My belly is flip-flopping. This was not supposed to happen," she said.

Bertinelli's new love turned out to be writer Mike Goodnough, who confirmed their relationship via Substack. "I am Valerie Bertinelli's boyfriend ... and that may well be among the most surreal sentences I've ever pecked out," Goodnough wrote. The pair initially met on social media and became friends. "It was strictly platonic but there was something about him that I connected with that felt familiar," she told People. Chatting online led to phone calls which eventually blossomed into a romantic relationship. Bertinelli was never the same after her divorce from Tom Vitale, and expressed that she did some healing after the divorce and Eddie Van Halen's death. "I found joy first," the actor explained, "and then a man entered my life."

In April 2024, Valerie Bertinelli could not hold back her joy when speaking about new boyfriend Mike Goodnough on "The Drew Barrymore Show." "He's thoughtful and kind and ridiculously talented. He's an amazing writer, he's gorgeous, like so hot. He does it for me, big time," she gushed. Even regarding the topic of marriage, Bertinelli said, "If I've learned anything at this age, it's never say never, at all."

But there seemed to be evidence that the relationship wasn't as perfect as it appeared. Bertinelli told People in July of 2024 that, despite she and Goodnough's vow to never go three weeks without seeing each other, their schedules posed some difficulty. "The summer has been booked full. It is challenging," she said. The actor also expressed that she wanted to keep her private life more private, even though she'd initially been very open about her and Goodnough's relationship. "A part of me is just like, it's been so public and now I'm trying to pull back and make it so much less public, and try to keep some stuff for us now," she shared.

In November 2024, Goodnough took to Instagram to post some cryptic messages. "If you can go a whole day without talking to me, then go another," read one quote posted to his Instagram stories on November 2. Another story featured the message, "If someone is fine without you, then let them be fine without you" (via Closer Weekly). Of course, this led his followers to wonder whether he was referencing his relationship with Bertinelli.

Although Mike Goodnough denied that his Instagram musings were about his own life, it turned out something had surely been amiss between him and Valerie Bertinelli. Just days later, it was announced that the couple had called it quits after dating for ten months. "They are no longer in a relationship," a source shared with People. 

Given her relationship history, the split may have come as a blow to Bertinelli. On November 16, the actor posted a throwback pic of herself from 2007 on Instagram, the caption reading, "(Psst hey... let's promise ourselves we'll always find a reason to smile)." But a few days later she posted a video of her shaking hand, accompanied by a lengthy caption in which she explained that she'd had a bad anxiety attack that day. "A few hours ago, I was weeping uncontrollably, and my heart felt like it was pounding out of my chest. I couldn't stop shaking," she wrote. "Hours later, as I'm doing my best to meditate and EMDR my way out of this, this is the after effect that I can't quite seem to calm all the way yet," she explained regarding her trembling hand. 

She went on to ask her followers if they'd ever experienced something similar and how they had coped. While she did not link her anxiety attack to her breakup, it would make sense that the two were connected. Bertinelli's fans commented on her post in droves, wishing her well and sharing their own experiences.