Valerie Bertinelli Reveals Her Final Words to Ex Eddie Van Halen on His Deathbed

Valerie Bertinelli is opening up about her relationship with Eddie Van Halen in her new memoir “Getting Naked: The Quiet Work of Becoming Perfectly Imperfect.”

The actress and the rocker were married from 1981-2007 and share son Wolfgang.

Bertinelli reflects on losing Eddie in 2020, when he died after suffering a stroke at 65. The Van Halen guitarist had also battled cancer over the years.

According to Entertainment Weekly, Valerie wrote in her book, "It still breaks my heart that he ran out of time, because he was so there. He so wanted to be the right person, the good person that he already was. His heart was always pure. He was such a good man.”

She also recalled, "At the last Thanksgiving we shared, he took me outside and opened his heart in a way he said was way past due. We both did. We found a place of deep love and forgiveness for our past mistakes. My final words to him when he was taking his last breaths in the hospital were 'I love you.' I'm so grateful to have had that sense of lightness.”

Valerie said he also spent his final year making amends with the people in his life.

"He was cold-calling them,” she said. "It was sweet — and that was Ed at the core, sweet. He wanted to make it right with me, too. I was told that every time I would walk out of a room, he would look around and say, 'The biggest mistake of my life was letting her go.' In our own way, we never did let go.”

EW adds that at the end of the book, she reflects on their “flawed love,” writing, "I knew him for 40 years. Even when we were angry, we stayed loving. It changed, evolved, and grew back different but stronger than it had been at the beginning of our relationship. It healed us.”