Food Network host Valerie Bertinelli has revealed the details of her emotional farewell with ex-husband Eddie Van Halen in an excerpt from her upcoming memoir Enough Already: Learning to Love the Way I Am Today.
The two were married from 1981 to 2007, which Bertinelli described as a period of “love anger, frustration and friendship,” and likely had significant difficulties stemming from the virtuosic guitarist’s alcohol and drug abuse problems.
Their son, Wolfgang Van Halen, was born in 1991.
It seems they reconciled later in life after their divorce, however. Bertinelli shares many emotional encounters she has with Eddie before his death, but his last words are simple and particularly affecting.
In October of 2020, Bertinelli apparently had to rush to the hospital in the morning because the guitarist’s breathing suddenly changed while she and her son Wolfgang had been monitoring him.
“‘I love you’ are the last words Ed says to Wolfie and me,” wrote Bertinelli in the memoir, saying they said it back to him before he passed. Eddie’s other loved once, including second wife Janie Lisewski and brother Alex Van Halen.
Bertinelli also poignantly said that the end came in, “slow motion,” and that the family actually broke into laughter, not tears, after a long period of silence and sometime sharing stories and memories.
Enough Already will hit shelves on Jan 18.
