‘Food Network’ Star Valerie Bertinelli, Who Lost Ex-Husband Eddie Van Halen To Cancer, Admits ‘For The First Time In My Life, I Love My Body As It Is’

Bertinelli, who divorced her estranged husband Tom Vitale and lost her iconic musician ex-husband Eddie Van Halen to throat cancer, wrote alongside an Instagram post, featuring a photo of her standing in a black bikini, “At some point I will talk about the madness my body has been through this year.

“But right now every lump bump wrinkle and saggy part of me just feels acceptance and simple appreciation to be standing in front of a mirror in a hotel bathroom in downtown Manhattan ready to color my roots late on a Monday night.”

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A post shared by Valerie Bertinelli (@wolfiesmom)

Bertinelli’s Instagram post comes a little more than a year since she shared a photo of herself wearing her “before” clothing, a salmon-colored button-up shirt and blue jeans.

The since-deleted post, shared on Oct. 2, 2024, was captioned, “Warning: vulnerable post incoming -all hateful commenter’s will be blocked.”

She said during the video clip, while donning her “fat” clothing, “I have done so much emotional and mental work to recover from years of pretending everything was okay. … Health is not a body size, health is not that number you see on a scale.

“Your worth as a human being isn’t dictated by your body. It’s not defined by your body.”

She continued, “I thought I was fat the last time I wore these clothes. I’ve never felt more beautiful, more at peace, more mentally and emotionally stable than I do today and I’m wearing my ‘fat clothes.’”

In a followup post, Bertinelli explained further, “First of all, to those of you who felt a connection to my prior post and identified with what I was talking about, (empowering ourselves to focus on our own self-acceptance and self-love), thank you and thank you for your kindness. I see you. We are in this together.

“To all of you that would sit in judgment of my body, the photo, and my reason for posting it, I hope you find a place in your heart to not judge yourself as harshly as you judge others.”

She continued, “I have dealt with judgment my entire life starting from when I was a young girl. It has taken me a long time to realize that my judgment, with patient discernment, is the only judgment that counts. More importantly, what is my character like? Am I kind to people? When I’m not kind, what is in my way? Is it my ego or my emotions? Or both? How can I change and grow to be the best version of me today. In this body.

“I have no power over someone else’s judgment of me and now I have no interest. Finally. It’s taken me almost 3 years of emotional labor to get to this point mentally and for the first eight months of this year I had physical setbacks.”

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A post shared by Valerie Bertinelli (@wolfiesmom)

After further expressing how she doesn’t care what others think about her body or what she chooses to post on social media, she concluded, “For the first time in my life, I love my body as it is. It’s not the 20 year old body that I hated and it really is a shame that I hated that beautiful body.

“Yes, it was a very different body than the one I now inhabit, but it hadn’t yet been through the journey I needed to go through. Even as challenging as it’s been and is, I am grateful for this journey and I wouldn’t trade this body for my 20 year old body any day. Ever.”

Life After Losing Her ‘Soulmate’ Eddie Van Halen

Bertinelli has come a long way now that she’s more confidence that ever before, in addition to experiencing the tragic lost her first husband legendary guitarist Eddie Van Halen in October 2020 after multiple battles with various forms of cancer.

The two were married from 1981 to 2007 and share a son named Wolfgang. Despite their separation, Bertinelli considered Van Halen to be a “soulmate.”

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A post shared by Valerie Bertinelli (@wolfiesmom)

“I just don’t feel like I’ve ever been loved like that, in that way, from anybody else,” she’s said in an earlier interview. “I just feel a connection with Ed that I’ve never really felt with anyone else.”

Van Halen’s first diagnosis tongue cancer came in the year 2000 when his son, Wolfgang, was just 9 years old. For treatment, he had part of his tongue removed, but he was declared to have entered remission in 2002.

Then around 2014, he was diagnosed with throat cancer after cancerous cells traveled there from his tongue. In 2017, cancer struck again when Eddie Van Halen was diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer.

Then came a brain tumor in 2019. He received treatment for his lung cancer in Germany to extend his expected survival time and reportedly had gamma knife radiation, a type of a radiosurgery, to remove his brain tumor.

Van Halen struggled with his health for many years. SurvivorNet obtained a copy of the death certificate issued two months after his passing which revealed that he was suffering from both lung and skin cancer. The document lists his cause of death as a cerebrovascular accident (stroke), but underlying conditions included pneumonia, lung cancer, myelodysplastic syndrome and squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck.

Myelodysplastic syndrome, a disorder which causes a disruption in blood cell production, often occurs in response to cancer treatments. He had been suffering from this disorder for the last six months of his life.

One important thing to note is that while we do not necessarily know why each of his cancers developed, we do know that years of heavy drinking, drug use and chain-smoking might have increased his risk for cancer. And despite Eddie Van Halen’s claims that his throat cancer was caused by putting copper and brass guitar picks in his mouth for years, there is no sufficient evidence to back up these claims.

Self-Acceptance and Body Image

Body image problems are not unusual, especially for so many people dealing with health challenges – whether cancer or another type of illness.

And it’s important you try to work on how you view your body because it can positively impact your emotional and physical well-being as a whole.

“Every day of our lives is really filled with uncertainty” but those facing a cancer diagnosis tend to feel that uncertainty at a more extreme level, Dr. William Breitbart, the chair of the Department of Psychology and Behavioral Sciences at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, previously told SurvivorNet.

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Dr. Breitbart also said that learning to embrace that uncertainty is a part of living, not just for those fighting cancer, but for everyone.

“What the task becomes is having the courage to live in the face of uncertainty, realizing that you cannot necessarily control the uncertainty in life, like the suffering that occurs, challenges both good and bad,” Dr. Breitbart says.

“You may not be able to control those but you have control over how you choose to respond.”

Meanwhile, Dr. Marianna Strongin, a New York-based licensed clinical psychologist, also has some helpful advice. She encourages people that spending time in front of the mirror can help with body image.

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Although “research has found that when looking in the mirror we are more likely to focus on the parts of our body we are dissatisfied with” which can cause “a negative self-view and lower self-esteem,” it’s important to look at the parts of your body that you love and the parts of your body that you don’t.

Eventually, Dr. Strongin says, doing so can help you create a more accepting relationship with yourself.

“Body image is both the mental picture that you have of your body and the way you feel about your body when you look in a mirror,” she said. “As you allow yourself to spend more time looking at all of you, you will begin having a new relationship with your body.”

MORE: My Confidence Was Destroyed: Dealing With Body Image During Cancer Treatment

Whether you are living with cancer or some other type of illness, it’s important to know you’re not alone if you’re having a hard time with how you view your body after receiving a diagnosis or going through treatment.

Protecting Your Inner Beauty and Self-Esteem

Licensed clinical psychologist Dr. Marianna Strongin also previously explained to SurvivorNet, “Cancer changes who you are both physically and emotionally.” And even though Bertinelli didn’t battle cancer herself, it’s important to understand that struggles with self-esteem can happen can take hold of anyone.

A study published in Frontiers in Psychology questioned how self-esteem should be considered in cancer patients. Researchers noted cancer patients’ framing of their diagnosis and how they cope with their diagnosis and subsequent treatment impacts their self-esteem throughout their cancer journeys.

“Adaptive adjustment strategies (positive reframing, use of emotional support, active coping, acceptance, and planning) in breast cancer patients were associated with high self-esteem. Social support also appears to be strongly related to self-esteem,” the study says.

WATCH: How a breast cancer survivor embraced changes to her body.

Dr. Strongin suggests looking at the part or parts of your body impacted by the cancer or cancer treatment to help you cope with body changes. She recommends creating a regular practice of accepting your body image because it enables you to accept your cancer journey emotionally and physically.

“As you allow yourself to spend more time looking at all of you, you will begin having a new relationship with your body. It may not happen immediately, but you can start honoring and thanking your new body with time.

“Just because the treatment is behind you, the emotional recovery can take longer,” Dr. Strongin adds.

If you find yourself wrestling with your emotions because of a diagnosis, remember you don’t have to go it alone. Your support group is filled with loved ones who are there to help you on your journey.

“The patient or person going through the stressful event should accept that emotions will be fluid. You may feel fine one day and then feel a massive stress wave the next. It’s also important for those you look to for support, whether that’s a therapist, friends, family, or both, to understand the fluidity of stress-related emotions,” psychiatrist Dr. Lori Plutchik says.

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Contributing: SurvivorNet Staff

Learn more about SurvivorNet's rigorous medical review process.

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