Who is Food Network Star Valerie Bertinelli’s Husband, Tom Vitale?
Actress Valerie Bertinelli is best known for her roles in the sitcoms One Day at A Time and Hot in Cleveland. Most recently, she has earned a place at the Food Network table with her popular programs, Valerie’s Home Cooking, Kids Baking Championship, Family Food Showdown, and Family Restaurant Rivals. It’s clear she has found her niche at the network and is passionate about cooking and her family.
Find out more about the true passions of her life: her husband, Tom Vitale, and their large family.
How they met
Bertinelli was at one time married to Van Halen guitarist, Eddie Van Halen. They separated in 2001, and in 2004, she began dating financial planner Tom Vitale.
The actress’s brother, Patrick, a Scottsdale resident, introduced Bertinelli and Vitale in 2004, when she was there for a visit.
“Val and I were coming from a tough time and wanting to move on but didn’t want to trust anyone,” Vitale opened up to AARP in 2010. “We just understood each other completely. My family is her family. It wasn’t love at first sight; it was family at first sight.”
How long they’ve been married
The couple dated six years before finally tying the knot in 2011. “I think I got tired of calling him ‘my spousal equivalent,’ ” the One Day at a Time star told The View that same year. “It’s nice to call him my husband. It feels appropriate.”
Vitale placed a platinum wedding band engraved with Romanesque flourishes onto Bertinelli’s finger and proposed to the Food Network star while they were vacationing in Florence, Italy. “We’d talked about getting married,” Bertinelli told AARP in 2010, “but I was still shocked. It was sweet when he asked me, because he was so scared. I was like, ‘Are you kidding me?'”
The wedding guests included many of the 59-year-old’s former costars, such as Mackenzie Phillips and Pat Harrington from One Day at a Time and her Hot in Cleveland castmates Jane Leeves and Wendie Mallick.
The happy couple’s blended family
Nothing makes the couple happier than spending time with their families. Vitale is the father of four children, while Bertinelli is mom to her son with Van Halen, Wolfgang, who she affectionately calls ‘Wolfie.’
Bertinelli says of step-parenting, ” It felt very very different because they have a mother, and I would never ever want to take her place because that’s its own special bond, as I feel with my son. But, I can be a really great friend to them…I’ve developed special friendships with all four of these kids. I love them dearly.”
“Of all the roles I have taken, none has been more satisfying than motherhood,” the former Jenny Craig spokeswoman stated in her memoir Losing It. “I shunned the spotlight in favor of a normal life, driving carpools, volunteering in my son’s classroom [and] making dinner.”
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