Valerie Bertinelli is looking back on her relationship with late rocker Eddie Van Halen with honesty — and a few regrets.
During the Wednesday, March 4 episode of podcast Work in Progress With Sophia Bush, the actress reflected on her marriage to the Van Halen guitarist and the years after their divorce. While she said she doesn’t see their marriage as a total failure, Bertinelli, 65, admitted she wishes she had handled some things differently.
“You know, it was crazy in a personal way, because the frustration of wanting him to get well, you know, and me not being mature enough to know how to deal with that,” Bertinelli said, referencing Van Halen’s struggles with alcohol and drug addiction. “And, because knowing what I know now about trauma and how it affects people, I would be much more compassionate with Ed and his journey that he needed to take.”
The former couple married in 1981 and welcomed son Wolfgang, now 34, in 1991. They divorced in 2007. Van Halen died of cancer in 2020 at age 65.
“I’m incredibly grateful for where we ended up the last year of his life,” Bertinelli shared. “But I’m kicking myself that I wish I had learned what I know now earlier, so I could have been a better friend to him.”