Who is Valerie Bertinelli? Matthew Perry made out with Eddie Van Halen's WIFE as he lay passed out
NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK: 'Friends' star Matthew Perry recounted some of his earlier romantic encounters, including his infatuation with his former 'Sydney' co-star Valerie Bertinelli, in his upcoming autobiography titled 'Friends, Lovers, And The Big Terrible Thing'. According to Page Six, Perry, 53, revealed in his novel that the former child star, now 62, was his passionate crush to the point where he ended up having a steamy make-out session with her after her then-husband Eddie Van Halen allegedly passed out drunk next to them.
The actor recently sat down for an interview with Diane Sawyer in which he addressed the value of having friends and a social safety net to overcome his years-long battle with addiction. The actor also discussed his strange dispute with Keanu Reeves in the new book. 'Matthew Perry – The Diane Sawyer Interview' will air on Friday, October 28, 2022, on ABC and the next day on Hulu.
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According to Perry's autobiography, his stint in 'Sydney' as Bertinelli's brother turned intense because he "fell madly in love with Valerie Bertinelli, who was clearly in a troubled marriage." Perry wrote, "My crush was crushing; not only was she way out of my league, but she was also married to one of the most famous rock stars on the planet, Eddie Van Halen."
Perry describes how deeply he fell in love with the actress and began to make plans for their future. He wrote, "It is important to point out here that my feelings for Valerie were real. I was completely captivated — I mean, I was obsessed with her and harbored elaborate fantasies about her leaving Eddie Van Halen and living out the rest of her days with me," as cited by Daily Mail.
When he was invited to Bertinelli and Van Halen's house, where he was "just hanging out and gazing at Valerie, trying to make her laugh," things finally became out of control. "When you made her laugh, you felt ten feet tall," the 'Friends' star gushed and wrote, "Eddie had enjoyed the fruits of the vine a little too hard, one more time, and eventually he just passed out, not ten feet away from us." He added, "This was my chance! If you think I didn’t actually have a chance in hell you’d be wrong, dear reader — Valerie and I had a long, elaborate make-out session. It was happening — maybe she felt the same way I did." He claimed that Bertinelli even showed signs of liking him back. "I told her I had thought about doing that for a long time, and she had said it right back to me," he further added.
But when he informed his co-star Craig Bierko about his night with Bertinelli, Bierko was wary rather than happy and cautioned him to watch himself. Bertinelli, on the other hand, "made no mention of what had happened and was behaving—as she should have been—like this was just a normal day."
Perry said, "I quickly got the hint and also played the role I was supposed to, but inside I was devastated." The actor claimed that Bertinelli's professionalism caused him to have tearful, sleepless evenings and that he used 'Sydney's failure as an escape from his obsession because he "didn't have to see Valerie anymore."
The actor provides a Freudian explanation for his attraction to Bertinelli and other ladies who couldn't love him back. Perry wrote, "I have spent my life being attracted to unavailable women. It doesn’t take a psychology degree to figure out that this had something to do with my relationship with my mother."
Who is Valerie Bertinelli?
CBS sitcom 'Sydney' starred 'Friends' actor Perry playing the younger brother to the title character Bertinelli. The sitcom aired for 13 episodes in 1990. Bertinelli played Holly Aldridge on NBC's 'Café Americain' from 1993 to 1994. Later, she made appearances in TV movies like 'The Haunting of Helen Walker' in 1995 and 'Two Mothers for Zachary in 1996. In addition to lending her voice to the animated Fox series 'Family Guy' in 2001, Bertinelli portrayed Gloria, an angel, on 59 episodes of the CBS drama 'Touched by an Angel' from 2001 and 2003, according to Celebrity Net Worth.
Bertinelli and musician Eddie Van Halen got married on April 11, 1981, and their son Wolfgang Van Halen was born on March 16, 1991. The couple got divorced in December 2007. Eddie's drug addiction and refusal to stop smoking after being diagnosed with mouth cancer, according to Bertinelli, were important causes of the divorce.
Bertinelli married financial planner Tom Vitale on January 1, 2011, and she became the stepmother to his four children. Van Halen died in October 2020 after a long fight with cancer. Bertinelli and Wolfgang were with him when he died.