Valerie Bertinelli Didn’t Just Love Eddie Valen Halen: A Look at the ‘One Day at a Time’ Star’s Complex Love Life
Valerie Bertinelli, who turns 65 today, has been in the headlines recently, though not for reasons related to her cookbooks, Food Network shows, or roles on classic sitcoms like One Day at a Time or Touched by an Angel. Rather, it was because ex-boyfriend Mike Goodnough, who dated Bertinelli for 10 months in 2024, took to social media repeatedly throughout April to weigh in on their relationship post-breakup. Goodnough made multiple posts, addressing whether the couple were secretly taking swipes at each other via social media, and reflecting on their relationship as “complicated.”
The Hot in Cleveland star is well-known for her dramatic 26-year marriage to guitar god Eddie Van Halen, which was continually rocked by mutual infidelity and struggles with drug addiction. But she’s had other love in her life, as well.
Scott Colomby
Bertinelli was rumored to have dated Caddyshack and Porky’s star Colomby during his time as a guest star on One Day at a Time; he appeared in six episodes during the 1977-8 season as the love interest of Bertinelli’s Barbara.
Paul Shaeffer
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In Bertinelli’s memoir, Losing It, she writes about her brief romance with The Late Show musician Shaffer: “I began seeing another musician. I met Paul Shaffer — yes, the same Paul Shaffer who’s now famous as David Letterman’s bandleader. … We struck up a neighborly friendship. Paul was a doll — nice, witty and immensely talented. What really got me, though, was that to me he looked like Elton John. We went out twice, including New Year’s Eve. Then his girlfriend called, and I never heard from him again. Thanks, Paul. In reality, there were no hard feelings, and we laughed about it years later.” Shaffer, at 27, was 11 years older than the then-16-year-old Bertinelli.
Steven Spielberg
“I went up to go read for Raiders of the Lost Ark, and then [Steven Spielberg] asked me out on a date,” Bertinelli revealed on an April appearance on The Drew Barrymore Show.
Bertinelli recalled that she and Spielberg, who is 14 years her senior, dated for three or four months, and claimed that she “had a ball” during her time with the E.T. director, and that she was his date to the Academy Awards that year. “He still has a bowling shirt of mine, Steven, that you had in your house, and I didn’t get it out of the closet when we broke up, so I would like it back,” the actress laughed.
Eddie Van Halen
Bertinelli and her longest love, Van Halen guitarist Eddie Van Halen, met in 1980, when the band was just rising to fame. Her brothers convinced her to accompany them to a Van Halen concert because they thought their sister’s presence might get them backstage — and it did. Once backstage, Bertinelli met the rocker for the first time; three days later, he called her, asking her to come to his place. “So I went out and visited, and we never separated from then on,” Bertinelli confessed on a 2008 episode of Oprah.
Bertinelli and Van Halen married in 1981, a time when both abused drugs, including cocaine. She recalled being given a questionnaire by the priest performing their wedding: “As we filled out the forms at home, we each held a little vial of cocaine. Now, if you ask me, those are not two people who should be making decisions about the rest of their lives.” She also remembered that both passed out cold, in their clothes, inebriated, on their wedding night.
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The pair, who were respectively busy with acting and music responsibilities, often felt disconnected and lonely, which both Van Halen and Bertinelli expressed by having affairs outside their marriage. Though Wolfgang, the pair’s only child, was born in 1991, and the pair repeatedly tried therapy, by 2001, they had separated, officially divorcing in 2007.
Though she and Van Halen both eventually married other people, they stayed in touch, and eventually became close, especially after Van Halen was diagnosed with lung cancer. She spent the final weeks of Van Halen’s life visiting him in the hospital alongside Woflgang and Van Halen’s second wife; she recalled that his final words to her were, “I love you.”
Tom Vitale
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After breaking up with Van Halen, Bertinelli told AARP in 2010, “I thought I would be alone for the rest of my life, because I didn’t want the responsibility. Relationships are too hard.” However, Bertinelli began dating financial planner Vitale in 2004, after being introduced to him by her brother. The two connected over their shared Italian heritage and connections to their large families. Vitale proposed in 2010, and the two married in 2011.
A decade later, Bertinelli filed for divorce; as she told People in 2024, “We became very unkind to one another and that’s not a way to live in a marriage.” The stress of the marriage’s breakdown, she said, caused her to “hit rock bottom emotionally. All the drama and trauma I hadn’t dealt with. I’ve used food to numb my emotions. I’ve used alcohol to numb my emotions. Because there was so much sadness in my life, and alcohol amplified it. Those were symptoms of what was going on inside of me.” She referred to their marriage as “toxic” during a 2024 episode of The Drew Barrymore Show.
Mike Goodnough
Bertinelli connected with writer and Twitter celeb Goodnough online, and the pair began dating in early 2024; they took their relationship public in April 2024, with a Substack post where Goodnough wrote, “Valerie freaking Bertinelli… dating… me!?! I know. Ludicrous. How would that even f—— happen?”.
The pair lived on opposite coasts, though they met up frequently and Goodnough accompanied her on the tour for her cookbook Indulge, and was her date for the 2024 Daytime Emmys.
However, the pair split in November 2024. In April 2025, Goodnough created a number of social media posts addressing their relationship, where he described Bertinelli as “in a war with her ghosts,” but also claimed that “I loved Valerie more than I’ve ever loved someone in a relationship of choice … As a result, the dissolution of our relationship and way it played out has been by far the most painful experience of my life.” In an April 19 post, Goodnought said of his previous comments, “I regret having posted it. I wish I hadn’t. The issue addressed was real. My post made it worse rather than better.” Bertinelli has not publicly commented on the split.
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