Depending on where you fall on the generational timelines, you know Valerie Bertinelli as an actress. Maybe it’s as wise-cracking teen Barbara Romano on the CBS sitcom One Day at a Time or 50-something main lead on TV Land’s Hot in Cleveland. Hard rock fans know her as late Eddie Van Halen’s ex-wife and the mom to Mammoth’s founding member Wolfgang Van Halen, while foodies are familiar with Bertinelli as the Emmy Award-winning Food Network host of Valerie’s Home Cooking. Don’t forget to include the success she found as a New York Times bestselling author.
While she is all of the above, Bertinelli is also a survivor whose forthcoming book Getting Naked: The Quiet Work of Becoming Perfectly Imperfect is a sequel of sorts to her 2022 self-help book Enough Already: Learning to Love the Way I Am Today. Not unlike its predecessor, Getting Naked is a collection of essays discussing Bertinelli’s life experiences tinged with nuances of hope and growth. The difference here is the depth of trauma she shares on this go-round.
“I started off writing this book because I have so many journal entries and I really wanted to write a book somebody could keep in their bag to walk around with and be inspired by,” she said. “I wanted to do meditations and show how to get through anxiety and certain things. As I was writing it, [I realized] it was a little bit more than that. I couldn’t just talk about how to heal yourself without actually going through what I needed to heal.”
She added, “Then I decided I was going to talk about some things that are really uncomfortable and have been really uncomfortable to actually talk about, even with my therapist. I thought if I decided to go this far, it could be incredibly helpful for somebody out there. It started to become a brand-new book that delved deeper into how we heal and what we need to heal from.
“I’m hoping people can take some of these stories like puzzles and see what family dynamics mean, how love is modeled for them, and what it means to our lives now and how we model love for other people now and for our children. I’m hoping that by me going through the toughest times of my life and my trauma, it will help somebody else deal with their own.”
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Among the traumas Bertinelli addresses are the stresses of seeing her last marriage dissolve, grappling with self-loathing while working in an industry that embraces surface images of women and the physical costs that come with choosing surgical enhancements that eventually go south (a burst breast implant). She also goes deeper in discussing the relationship she had with her late parents and their traumas of infidelity, losing a young brother to an accidental poisoning, and Bertinelli’s own sexual abuse trauma, which she only recently came to terms with from the help of her therapist. It all came to a head with this project.
“The year 2025 was probably one of the worst years in my life — everything physical and emotional happened that year,” she recalled. “It was really cathartic to write this book. I thought at a certain point I was going to have to pull back and not say certain things. Then I thought, ‘Why?’ At this age, what do I care what someone thinks of me? If they think I’m going too far or think I’m navel-gazing, which I don’t feel like I am, they can have that opinion and they’re welcome to it.”
The crux of her book tour is an extension of the deep relationship Bertinelli has with fans that’s been cultivated on myriad social media platforms.
“I have a really wonderful audience and community that we’ve somehow been able to build up online,” she said. “I love these people and I see the same people at these book signings a lot, especially on Long Island. So, let’s talk. Ask me questions. Let’s engage and let me hear your stories. I’ll tell you mine. I just want to engage with people. I’m so excited to get out here and have conversations with people.”
Bertinelli’s real-time wild ride continues with the launch of Valerie’s Place, a dedicated online platform that includes previously released content (old episodes of Valerie’s Home), newer shows (Now Val’s Cooking, Meals For One) and plans to launch a podcast and book club. It all makes for an exciting future that includes cheerleading her son.
“I’ll be out there on my book tour, engaging with as many people as I can, talking about the book and seeing Wolfie as often as I can,” she said.
Valerie Bertinelli and her book tour will be appearing on March 11 at Madison Theatre at Molloy University, 1000 Hempstead Ave., Rockville Centre. For more information, visit madisontheatreny.org or call 516-323-4444.
