Valerie Bertinelli has found love again!
In a new interview, the Food Network star revealed she's currently head over heels for her new boyfriend, admitting the relationship came completely out of left field since she had sworn off dating.
"I'm in love. It’s a seesaw of emotions because I was adamant I was never falling in love again," she confessed. "I was supposed to die with my six cats and my dog and very happily live the rest of my years alone — I'm good alone."
"My belly is flip-flopping," the mom-of-one, 63, gushed. "This was not supposed to happen."
The star — who has yet to reveal her beau's identity — said things were "strictly platonic" with the writer when they first met via Instagram a few years ago.
"But there was something about him that I connected with that felt familiar," she explained, noting things didn't turn romantic until this year. "It’s crazy the comfort level."
Bertinelli said Mr. Right didn't just suddenly walk into her life, as she spent "a long time" working on herself and her happiness after enduring a bitter divorce from Tom Vitale in 2022 and mourning the loss of her first husband, Eddie Van Halen, in 2020.
"I got more intentional about my healing," the chef explained. "That meant a lot of walks with [my dog] Luna, a lot of therapy sessions, a lot of learning that I deserve to feel good."
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Writing her cookbook Indulge — which included personal stories as well as recipes — also helped her move forward.
"The more I let myself cry, the better I felt," she admitted. "I wasn’t trying to be happy or sad or thin. I wasn’t trying to be anything other than who I was."
The TV personality explained in another interview that the dynamic with her boyfriend is "unlike any relationship that I’ve ever experienced with a man. I don’t want to say too much, but I feel incredibly blessed and lucky to have met him."
The exciting news comes a few months after Bertinelli sadly revealed she was cut from her gig on Kids Baking Championship, where she acted as a judge.
"It really hurt my feelings," she confessed on social media. "I know it’s not supposed to. Logically, I know it’s business [and] budget cuts, right? But it really hurt my feelings to know that I’m not going to be asked back to be on Kids Baking Championship really sucks."
The cookbook author had been on the show since its 2015 premiere.
People interviewed Bertinelli.
