On the six-year anniversary of Eddie Van Halen’s death, Valerie Bertinelli shared a simple throwback photo of the two of them together, along with a succinct caption about the memories they shared. But some critics still thought she was doing too much, given that she and Eddie were no longer together at the time of his death.
Valerie and Eddie were married for 26 years. They also welcomed a son, Wolfgang, in 1991. Then, they finalized their divorce in 2007, more than 10 years before Eddie’s death. In 2009, Eddie married Janie Liszewski, and they were still together when he died. So, in the eyes of some critics, Valerie had no business sharing what she shared on the anniversary of Eddie’s death because she’s not his widow. Valerie obviously disagrees, and let the critics know exactly how she feels about it.
Some critics called her post “weird.”
Valerie captioned the photo she posted with, “Photos may fade, like old photos do, but not the memories and never the love.” And, to be fair, not all of the comments were negative. Some people could understand the concept of maintaining a positive relationship with an ex and continuing to have love for them even though the marriage ultimately didn’t work. But multiple critics tried to tell Valerie that she was “weird” for posting this.
“It’s weird you hold on to Eddie, as if you two were a couple in the end,” one of the critics commented. “…STOP being that EX.” That same person reminded Valerie that she and Eddie separated years ago and said “he moved on.”
Another person claimed that Valerie “refuses to move on” and “won’t let go of the past,” which seems “sad.”
Others felt like they could understand Valerie, though. After all, she and Eddie spent 26 years together and shared a son. “Divorce doesn’t erase years of memories, history, love, or the life two people built together,” one commenter argued in Valerie’s defense. “It certainly doesn’t give strangers on the internet the right to rewrite their story or tell someone how they’re allowed to remember the person they loved.”
Valerie defended herself in a follow-up post.
Based on how she reacted to the hate, it sounds like people have left these kinds of comments on her posts before. And frankly, she feels the way she feels, and continues to have a lot of love for her ex-husband.
“It does not take long for me to get a lot of pushback when I post a picture of me and Ed,” she said in a video that she posted after her post got a lot of hate. While this “used to really bother” her, it’s something that bothers her less now because she has “learned a lot.”
Not all the critics are outright telling Valerie how she should feel or what she should do, but she argued that many of their comments feel like “coercive control.”
She explained, “So they’ll never quite say the words, ‘You’re not allowed to love your ex-husband,’ but they berate you and berate you for months, make you think you’re crazy until you finally say, ‘OK, fine, I don’t love him.'”
She also said that these critics don’t tell her to delete the photos she’s posted of her ex-husband. But they do try to make her feel bad for posting them. For some time, it worked.
“(They’ll say) that you’re obsessed, say all kinds of f—ed up s— until you take the picture down,” Valerie said. “Coercive control is insidious and it’s soul-breaking, and I cannot believe that I f—ing fell for it.”
She also said she has a lot of love to give (unlike her haters).
The fact that she still has love for her late ex-husband does not mean she has failed to “move on.” She explained that she’s just capable of loving more than one person because she has a heart that “can hold a lot of love.” This is something she assumes her critics don’t relate to.
“My heart can hold a lot of love,” she said. “I have a big piece right here that’s got Ed’s name all over it, and Wolfie’s name, and my daughter-in-law, and my mother, and my cats, and my girlfriends, and all the people that I love in my life. My heart can hold it all.”
She continued, “And, if I ever fall in love again, I’ll make room in my heart for that person, without it touching the love I have for Ed, my son, my daughter-in-law, all the people that I love. Your heart opens up. Because your heart can hold a lot of love. All of our hearts can. So you can’t bother me. I love Ed. Never stopped loving Ed. And my heart loves a lot. Don’t you wish yours could too?”
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