Valerie Bertinelli recently shared a story about visiting her ex-husband, Eddie Van Halen, on tour in the ‘80s. During the May 6 episode of the Where Everybody Knows Your Name podcast, she explained that his band took a trip to South America once and she wanted to go with them.
“It was the early ’80s,” she said. “I don’t remember a lot about the ’80s, but I do remember this story.”
Bertinelli explained that she arrived in Brazil and met up with Eddie and his brother, Alex. “Ed and Al, his brother, had gone downstairs [before] Al’s wife at the time. She had said, ‘Let’s go down and join them.’ We go down to join them, and then we’re at the bar, whatever. Then, the boys go back upstairs, and we said, ‘OK, we’ll join you later.’ We were having fun at the bar.”
Bertinelli went on to explain that she and Al’s wife, Valeri Kendall, tried to reunite with the men upstairs. However, they weren’t able to get access to the next floor.
“I go to the elevator to go up to the room and they’re like, ‘No, no,’” she said. “[I asked], ‘Why? What’s happening? Why can’t we go up?’ … They were trying to tell us that prostitutes aren’t allowed on the upper floors. I was like, ‘No, no, I have a wedding ring.’”
She continued, “I had to leave the elevator, get on the phone because there were no cell phones in the early ’80s and call Ed in the room and said, ‘Can you come down and get me because they won’t let me up? They think Valeri and I are prostitutes.’ So, I’ve been mistaken for a prostitute before, or to be polite, a sex worker.”
Bertinelli and Eddie got married in 1981 and separated in 2001. They share one child, Wolfgang Van Halen, who is a musician.
