Valerie Bertinelli has opened up about how she’s coping after finalizing her divorce from financial planner Tom Vitale in November.
The IS One day at a time star shared her thoughts and feelings in an Instagram video posted on Friday (February 3) and said she underwent “intense” physical therapy that works on the body’s connective tissues.
“It’s so painful, but there’s a release that happens that’s really helpful,” she said. “I believe that there is a lot of emotional pain stored in the body, and I am trying my best to heal from it in every way – my therapy, my journaling, my meditation, rolfing.”
Bertinelli, 62, told her fans that she finds sharing her experience helpful because so many of them have been “through the same ordeal that I am”.
She also spoke to those who tell her to “take it easy” and said: “I’m over it. I am over the narcissist. I am long past the narcissist.”
The Food Network host filed for divorce from Vitale last May after legally separating in November 2021. The day she officially divorced him, Bertinelli posted on Twitter that she was celebrating “the second best day of my life”.
She said she is now focused on finding out what made her accept “the unacceptable” during her marriage to the financial planner.
Reflecting on a message from a follower who asked her the question, she said: “That question was just a light bulb. What made me suffer the unacceptable? So, by looking for that – by healing that – I’ve just made a better life for myself.
“I am more joyful. I am happier. I already have a life that I am grateful for, but a life that I can enjoy. Because finally I feel I deserve it.”
Bertinelli went on to say that she has “moved on from the s***ty part” and is “getting into the really hard, hard part that makes the most of it”.
In a previous video posted on social media, Bertinelli opened up about the abuse she suffered, although she did not clarify where it came from.
“I’ve been screamed at so many times and told how fat and lazy I am,” she said. “I understand… that someone was just projecting onto me whatever they wanted to portray on me, but it was my part to believe it, and I don’t believe it anymore.
“But it doesn’t stop the emotions coming up and the hurt. So that’s what we’re doing today. We are feeling the emotions and letting them go. Give them a voice.”
Bertinelli has one son, Wolfgang Van Halen, from her previous marriage to musician Eddie Van Halen, to whom she was married from 1981 to 2007. She was married to Vitale from 2011 to 2022.