Valerie Bertinelli reveals she’s never been asked on a first date

Valerie Bertinelli said on The Drew Barrymore Show that she has never been asked on a first date. The 65-year-old actress discussed a dating trend that has gained attention online, sometimes labeled as a Bob the Builder approach, in which women use dating apps to ask men to help them with home renovation projects. "I think it's a great idea," Bertinelli said. "I think sometimes you wanna play a game or, I mean, I don't even know. I don’t know. I've never been on a first date, so I have no idea how it works." When co-host Ross Mathews pressed for clarity, Bertinelli added, "No. No one's ever asked me out."

Barrymore teased that Bertinelli might skip straight to marriage, and the actress acknowledged she had a lifelong pattern of short dating histories before ending up in long relationships. Bertinelli explained the way she and her late ex-husband, Eddie Van Halen, came together without a traditional first date. "My brother Patrick brought us to the concert that [Van Halen] were having in Shreveport, Louisiana. My parents lived out there, and we just made eyes and then we talked backstage and then we talked." Van Halen then invited her to a concert in Oklahoma, and Bertinelli recalled, "eight months later, we were married." Bertinelli and Van Halen wed in 1981 and remained together for 26 years. Their son, Wolfgang, was born in 1991 and is now 34. Van Halen died in 2020 after a long battle with cancer.

Bertinelli later remarried to businessman Tom Vitale in 2011, and the couple separated in 2022. She filed for legal separation in 2021 and has since been outspoken about the toxicity she experienced in the marriage. In January 2023, she shared messages on Instagram that she had been "screamed at so many times and told how fat and lazy I am," later explaining that such remarks were projections from others rather than reflections of her own worth. "Hidden bruises are something that emotional, verbal, mental abuse do to you that people can't see. But we kind of deal with, every day, when they're activated," she wrote.

The actress indicated that the healing process has been ongoing and that she has chosen to focus on resilience and growth. "I'm grateful that the work on healing is working. So it's making me giggle now. I put these pants away forever, I even changed the way I walked in them. So now, I can wear them, hear that sound, and that's the sound of freedom, to me," Bertinelli said. The conversation touched on how personal experiences can shape public perspectives on relationships, aging, and self-care.

As Bertinelli continues to discuss her life publicly, she remains a prominent voice in Culture & Entertainment for her candid reflections on love, loss and the steps toward healing after difficult chapters. Her openness about past relationships—and the lessons learned along the way—has been a consistent thread in her public narrative, underscoring a broader conversation about resilience in the spotlight.