EDDIE VAN HALEN's Ex-Wife VALERIE BERTINELLI: 'I Loved Him From The Deepest Part Of My Soul'
February 3, 2022Eddie Van Halen's ex-wife Valerie Bertinelli discussed her new book, "Enough Already: Learning To Love The Way I Am Today", in a recent interview with Terrie Carr of the Morristown, New Jersey radio station 105.5 WDHA. Bertinelli reflected on the special relationship she had with her late ex-husband, saying: "I loved Ed from the deepest part of my soul. It may not have been the kind of love that two married people feel for one another any longer, but I had a great love for him.
"We weren't gonna get back together," she clarified. "Yes, he was living alone, Janie [his second wife] moved out and I was separated from my husband, but that didn't mean that we were getting back together. It just was what it was. We had a love for one another.
"I find myself struggling to explain what it was, but love is love. And I can't make somebody else feel more comfortable with the fact that I loved the man for 40 years even though I couldn't live with him. It is just that. And we both loved our son."
Bertinelli split with Van Halen in 2002 after 21 years of marriage. They officially divorced in 2007. Eddie then went on to marry Janie Liszewski in 2009, while Valerie also remarried, tying the knot with Tom Vitale in 2011. Valerie told People magazine that both marriages were struggling before Eddie's death. She eventually filed for separation from Vitale in November 2021.
In "Enough Already: Learning To Love The Way I Am Today", Valerie writes about saying goodbye to Eddie when the legendary guitarist died from cancer. She and their son, Wolfgang, 30, were by his side in his final moments.
"I love you are the last words Ed says to Wolfie and me and they are the last words we say to him before he stops breathing," Bertinelli writes.
Eddie died in October 2020 at the age of 65. The legendary VAN HALEN guitarist passed away at St. John's Hospital in Santa Monica, California.
Eddie was diagnosed with mouth cancer in 2000 and had tongue surgery. He later battled lung cancer and had been receiving radiation treatment in Germany. Things took a turn for the worse in early 2019 when Eddie got in a motorcycle accident. He was subsequently diagnosed with a brain tumor, and received gamma knife radiosurgery to treat the illness.
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