Alright, let’s simply get one factor straight from the highest: Valerie Bertinelli shouldn’t be right here on your Eddie Van Halen biopic fantasy.
Yeah, we’re speaking about the identical Valerie who spent many years with the guitar god himself, who raised their son Wolfgang, and who’s spent years batting away the Yoko Ono comparisons like flies at a picnic. She’s had sufficient of the Hollywood dramatization practice — and she or he’s not shopping for a ticket.
Yeah. She mentioned it. On The Drew Barrymore Present. Valerie joked, and not-so-joked about being referred to as the Yoko Ono of Van Halen.
Her actual phrases:
“Properly, I’ve been referred to as Yoko in my day… Oh, you didn’t know that I broke up Van Halen? However I couldn’t play [Ono].”
“As if I had the facility to interrupt up a band. Yoko’s an incredible girl. She’s an artist, and she or he didn’t break up the Beatles. The Beatles had their very own points.”
She recalled Van Halen having “their very own points,” which led to the hardship inside the band. “And it wasn’t all Ed’s fault. Okay, I’m simply going to place that on the market. Everyone likes to blame Ed, and he can’t defend himself. Nowhere close to was all of it Ed’s fault… He simply needed to jot down his music and play his music.”
Bertinelli doesn’t need to see a casting announcement involving a characterization of herself anytime quickly.
“Oh God, I hope they by no means do one about Van Halen,” she mentioned. “Be sure that I’m useless. I advised Wolfie, ‘Be sure that I’m useless.’”
Nevertheless, she has considered who ought to play her on display: “Selena Gomez. She can be superb. However Selena, don’t do it. Please don’t do it.”
Valerie made it crystal clear that Eddie Van Halen, who handed away in 2020, has been unfairly dragged for the demise of the band. And truthfully? She’s had it with the revisionist historical past.
She principally mentioned what most followers already kinda knew, however weren’t courageous sufficient to say out loud. Eddie wasn’t good, he struggled with habit, ego clashes, band politics, however to pin the implosion of one of many best rock bands of all time on one man?
Right here’s the place it will get fascinating. With the brand new Beatles cinematic universe, from director Sam Mendes, 4 biopics for 4 Beatles, everybody’s questioning what the following rock band to get the Hollywood glow-up will likely be. And Van Halen’s title is unquestionably on the shortlist.
So when Drew Barrymore introduced it up? Valerie didn’t bounce on the concept.
She’s lived it. The highs. The true lows. The hospital visits, the rehab stints, the moments the general public by no means noticed. Watching somebody forged actors to play out your heartbreak and chaos on a display whereas some studio execs attempt to squeeze it right into a 2-hour runtime?
However once more, she’d slightly not see it occur in any respect.
And truthfully, it’s not onerous to grasp why. Valerie nonetheless talks about Eddie with love. She was by his aspect when he handed. She doesn’t need some shiny Netflix drama turning their life into clickbait.
However in 1980, backstage at a Van Halen live performance in Shreveport, Louisiana, they met.
By 1981, they’re married. Their marriage had its highs, the beginning of their son, Wolfgang Van Halen, in 1991 being one of many largest.
However this was additionally a wedding underneath the crushing weight of fame, habit, touring, and two very completely different existence. Eddie was battling alcohol and drug points. Valerie, in her personal phrases, was making an attempt to carry all of it collectively, and struggling.
They separated in 2001. Finalized the divorce in 2007. Nevertheless, they stayed shut. Valerie has at all times mentioned, Eddie was the love of her life. Even when they couldn’t make marriage work, they had been bonded ceaselessly via Wolfgang.
And that’s precisely what occurred.
They co-parented. They stayed in contact. And when Eddie’s well being started to noticeably decline within the late 2010s, most cancers, throat surgical procedures, infinite remedies, Valerie was proper there. Visiting. Caring. Loving him in a means solely individuals with that historical past can.
