Eddie Van Halen’s ex wife Valerie Bertinelli shared a personal photo of the couple in their younger years to mark the sixth anniversary of his death. Van Halen passed on October 6, 2020, aged 65, following a battled with throat and lung cancer.
She was at his hospital bedside when he suffered a fatal stroke. Alongside her were the couple’s son Wolfgang, drummer Alex, and Eddie’s wife Janie. Although he and Bertinelli divorced in 2007, they’d remained close friends.
“Photos may fade, like old photos do,” she wrote in her Instagram post, “but not the memories and never the love.”
In 2025 Bertinelli said she’d inadvertently turned her difficult history with Eddie into “some sort of fantasy, soulmate recreation of history.” Perhaps illustrating a continuing struggle to deal with conflicting emotions, she reflected that, although they’d started out in a loving partnership, that “rapidly declined” due to her husband’s drug issues and infidelity.
Instead, she added, she’d found herself in a relationship that contained “nothing that makes you feel loved and wanted and cared for… nothing that would scream soulmate, that’s for sure.”
But she continued: “What we had together was this beautiful son that we both unconditionally loved. What I got out of that marriage was Wolfie, the best thing that ever happened to me.”
Last year, marking the guitar icon’s fifth anniversary, Wolfgang – who aims to release his fourth Mammoth album next year – posted a picture of him with his dad, and wrote: “The amount of things I wish I could share with you just keep piling up. I know you’d be proud… but I wish I could hear you say it. I’m trying to do the best I can. Love and miss you more than you know, Pop.”
