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Outbyte PC Repair FREERepair Windows errors before they cause bigger problemsFix Now →Outbyte Driver Updater FREEScan for outdated or missing drivers - takes under a minuteDriver Scan →Valerie Bertinelli’s 2024 remark that Eddie Van Halen was “not a soulmate” came as she reconsidered their marriage after watching her son Wolfgang describe his relationship with his father. She said she had recast the past as a romantic “fantasy” and pointed to painful realities in the marriage, while also expressing love for Eddie, gratitude for Wolfgang and continuing grief.
What prompted Bertinelli’s remark?
In early May 2024, Bertinelli posted a video reflecting on her marriage after trying to watch Wolfgang Van Halen’s episode of Behind the Music. Seeing her son’s account brought up his pain and led her to reconsider her own parenting and the story she had told herself about her relationship with Eddie.
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In the video, Bertinelli said she had turned the relationship into a “fantasy, soulmate recreation of history.” She also described falling in love with Eddie when she was 20, then said the marriage declined into drugs, alcohol and infidelity. Her concluding phrase was: “That’s what I got out of that marriage: Wolfie. The best thing that ever happened to me. Not a soulmate.”
Wolfgang described appearing on the program as “difficult, but also incredibly cathartic,” and said it let him reflect on his experiences and “my bond with my father.” The episode was the immediate prompt for Bertinelli’s reflection; her comment was about how she understood the marriage in hindsight, not a denial that she and Eddie had shared a bond.
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What did she mean by “not a soulmate”?
Bertinelli contrasted the idealized version of the relationship she had built in memory with the marriage she said she had actually experienced. She described the absence of feeling loved, wanted and cared for, saying, “Nothing that makes you feel loved, wanted, and cared for. Nothing that screams ‘soulmate,’ that’s for sure.” In that context, “not a soulmate” was a judgment about the romantic ideal she had attached to the relationship, not a claim that she had never loved Eddie.
Her video also held affection and disappointment together. She said she had been willing to occupy the role of grieving widow for a man she had not lived with for 20 years, and called their son the best thing she got from the marriage. Her grief for Eddie and gratitude for Wolfgang did not, in her telling, make the marriage itself a soulmate relationship.
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How her description changed from 2022 to 2024
The wording differed from Bertinelli’s memoir-era reflections. In a 2022 interview about Enough Already: Learning to Love the Way I Am Today, she said she believed someone could have more than one soulmate and described her connection with Eddie as “something really much deeper,” adding that their love had become “more about soul love.”
| When and context | How Bertinelli described the relationship | What she was reflecting on |
|---|---|---|
| 2022, interview during her memoir’s publication | “Something really much deeper” and “soul love” | Her enduring bond with Eddie and how she understood their love. |
| 2024, Instagram video after watching Wolfgang’s Behind the Music episode | She said she had made the relationship into a “fantasy” and concluded, “Not a soulmate.” | The gap between her idealized recollection and the painful parts of the marriage she described. |
These statements capture different moments and ways of looking back, rather than proving that one erased the other. Bertinelli’s 2024 reflection challenged the soulmate framing while leaving room for love, grief and the significance of their shared son.
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The timeline of their marriage and family
- 1981: Bertinelli and Van Halen married.
- 1991: Their son, Wolfgang, was born.
- 2001: They separated. Bertinelli’s reference to not having lived with Eddie for 20 years concerned their time apart in their living arrangements, not the date of their divorce.
- 2007: Their divorce was finalized.
- October 2020: Eddie Van Halen died.
The distinction between separation and divorce matters: they had been apart for years before their marriage legally ended, and Eddie died more than a decade after their divorce.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.What the quotations do—and do not—establish
The quoted lines from Bertinelli’s video are excerpts reproduced in contemporaneous reporting, not a complete official transcript. They support the central point: she was reassessing an idealized story about the marriage after hearing her son reflect on his father. They do not establish that she repudiated every loving memory or denied the lasting importance of Eddie in her life.
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