Valerie Bertinelli is in love again -- and no one is more surprised than her.
"My belly is flip-flopping," the actress and cookbook author shares in a new interview with People. "This was not supposed to happen."
"It's a seesaw of emotions because I was adamant I was never falling in love again," she continues. "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."
Bertinelli has been married twice. She wed rock star Eddie Van Halen in 1981 -- and they shared son Wolfgang, 33. Though the pair divorced in 2007, they remained amicable and Bertinelli was by Van Halen's side when he died due to complications from throat cancer on Oct. 6, 2020.
She was also married to financial planner Tom Vitale from 2011-2022. While she's keeping her new love's identity a secret for now, Bertinelli shared that before opening herself up to another relationship, she had to learn to love herself.
"I found joy first," she shares, "and then a man entered my life."
"I want to be clear that this process has taken a long time," Bertinelli explains. "I got more intentional about my healing. 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."
She also wrote a cookbook, Indulge, and found that creative journey to be intensely therapeutic.
"The cookbook was an offshoot of the emotional and mental healing I've been doing," the former Food Network host notes. "First came the work. Why I thought I didn't deserve to be loved. Why I was using food to numb my feelings. All the drama and trauma I hadn't dealt with — with Ed and my last marriage."
"The more I let myself cry, the better I felt. I wasn't trying to be happy or sad or thin. I wasn't trying to be anything other than who I was," she adds, joking, "I know we're talking about a cookbook but this cookbook got me through all of it."
After that healing, came the new relationship -- with a writer based on the East Coast -- which began online, on Instagram, and was "strictly platonic" at the start.
"There was something about him that I connected with that felt familiar," Bertinelli shares, noting that the relationship progressed to phone calls and ultimately, became romantic. "It’s crazy the comfort level... It feels incredibly right.”
Bertinelli isn't the only one in her family who's basking in romantic bliss. Wolfgang tied the knot with Andraia Allsop last October in Los Angeles, and the couple joined his mom on the red carpet at this year's Academy Awards, where the legacy guitarist took the stage with Ryan Gosling in his epic "I'm Just Ken" performance.
"I mean, people are going to get sick of it, but I don't care 'cause I'm so proud of him," the proud mother gushed to ET on the red carpet ahead of the ceremony. "He's been through a lot of adversity throughout all of this, and I'm really proud of the way he's handled it."
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