Valerie Bertinelli Xo 'I'M AT THE BEST PLACE IN MY LIFE

A DIFFICULT DIVORCE LED THE STAR TO 'START FOCUSING ON ME.' THEN CAME A HOT NEW ROMANCE: 'I'M MADLY IN LOVE'

- LIZ MCNEIL

It wasn't long ago that Valerie Bertinelli was thinking, "I was supposed to die with six cats and one dog and very happily live the rest of my years alone-I'm good alone." But all that changed when an online friendship with an East Coast writer turned romantic. On a recent spring afternoon at her home in the hills of Los Angeles, Bertinelli is beaming.

"I am in love," she says. "It's still so new. I'm not ready to share his name publicly. But it is unlike any connection I've ever felt. Mature, kind, thoughtful, patient. I'm glad it's happening. But it's like, what the heck is happening? It's a seesaw of emotions. My belly is flip-flopping. This was not supposed to happen."

Before Bertinelli, 63, could let love in, she had to learn to love herself. "I want to be very clear that this process has taken a long time," says the TV star. She confronted her body-image issues-which began when she was a teen-during her 2022 divorce from her second husband, Tom Vitale, after 11 years of marriage. "We became very unkind to one another, and that's not a way to live in a marriage," she says. "That was just the breaking point for me, where I finally decided I've had enough. I was continuing to tolerate intolerable things, starting with my own words in my own head."