Couples
Valerie Bertinelli Was Once ‘Mistaken’ for an Escort While Visiting Ex-Husband Eddie Van Halen
Valerie Bertinelli is opening up about an awkward moment from her marriage to late rock star Eddie Van Halen that still makes her laugh decades later.
During the Wednesday, May 6 episode of the Where Everybody Knows Your Name podcast, the 66-year-old actress recalled being mistaken for a sex worker while visiting Van Halen on tour in Brazil in the early 1980s.
“We were on hiatus [from One Day at a Time], and I was newly married at this time,” Bertinelli shared. “They were going to South America, and I wanted to go.”
She added, “It was the early ’80s. I don’t remember a lot about the ’80s, but I do remember this story.”
According to Bertinelli, she and Alex Van Halen‘s then-wife, Valeri Kendall, were enjoying drinks at the hotel bar while Eddie and Alex headed upstairs ahead of them.
But when the two women later tried to return to their hotel rooms, hotel staff stopped them at the elevator and refused to let them go upstairs.
“I go to the elevator to go up to the room, and they’re like, ‘No, no,'” the Hot in Cleveland alum recalled. “[I asked], ‘Why? What’s happening? Why can’t we go up?'”
She quickly realized the misunderstanding. “They were trying to tell us that prostitutes aren’t allowed on the upper floors,” she said. “I was like, ‘No, no, I have a wedding ring.'”
Bertinelli said staff still refused to let them upstairs. “I had to leave the elevator, get on the phone because there were no cellphones in the early ’80s, and call Ed in the room and said, ‘Can you come down and get me because they won’t let me up? They think Valeri and I are prostitutes.'”
She added with humor, “So, I’ve been mistaken for a prostitute before, or to be polite, a sex worker.”
Later in the same conversation, the One Day at a Time star also reflected on first meeting Eddie when she was just 20.
“My brothers invited me to Shreveport, where my parents lived ’cause my dad worked for General Motors,” she said. “[Eddie’s band] was playing at the local stadium there.”
At the time, Bertinelli admitted she had never heard of Van Halen. However, everything changed after seeing a photo of Eddie backstage.
“I really thought he was really f**king cute,” she recalled. “I really thought he had something magical happening.”
The couple tied the knot in 1981 and welcomed their son, Wolfgang Van Halen, in 1991 before divorcing in 2001.
After their split, Bertinelli married Tom Vitale in 2011. The former couple later divorced in 2021. She also briefly dated writer Mike Goodnough in 2024.
The legendary guitar player died in 2020 at age 65 following a battle with cancer, as reported by The Guardian.
