Valerie Bertinelli Drops F-Bomb Live on ‘Today’

Valerie Bertinelli had a very unfiltered morning on live television — and honestly, it was kind of perfect.

The actress stopped by Today with Jenna & Sheinelle on Thursday, May 7, to promote her upcoming Lifetime movie Love, Again, in which she plays a woman navigating a new emotional connection after her husband is diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s. What followed was one of the more memorable morning show moments in recent memory — complete with two on-air expletives, a lot of genuine laughter, and one very relatable apology.

The first slip came when Jenna Bush Hager asked Bertinelli whether playing the role had been therapeutic, given the real grief she’s carried over the past few years. Bertinelli opened up beautifully — talking about putting on a smile, carrying on, and identifying deeply with her character Caroline — before the word just came out.

“I’m one of those people that no matter what I’m going through, I will put that happy face on so that I don’t bring my s*** to other people… bring my stuff to other people,” she said, catching herself mid-sentence.

“I’m so terrible! I’m so sorry!” Bertinelli immediately told co-hosts Bush Hager and Sheinelle Jones. Bush Hager, 44, didn’t miss a beat. “We’re chatting with girlfriends,” she said warmly. “It comes up.”

Round Two

If the first one was a slip, the second one was a declaration.

Later in the interview, the conversation turned to Bertinelli’s romantic life. The One Day at a Time alum — who was married to Eddie Van Halen from 1981 to 2007 and to Tom Vitale from 2011 to 2022 — reflected on what she actually wants right now.

“There’s something about an intimate love with a partner, and I haven’t had a partner in over a decade, at least, where I thought we could become partners. So I do miss that,” she said. “But then, there’s another part of me that’s like, ‘I am so independent, and I can do everything on my own, so leave me the f*** alone.’”

“Oops, that’s a second one!” Bush Hager quipped.

Bertinelli looked genuinely stunned at herself. “Geeze Louise! I’ll never be invited back again! I’m sorry! God, what is wrong with me?”

Then she laughed it off with the kind of self-awareness that makes her so easy to root for: “It’s the 66-year-old disease where you just don’t care what comes out of your mouth. I apologize to everybody out there. I’m sorry.”

She’s Been Speaking Her Mind a Lot Lately

The live TV moment fits right in with where Bertinelli is at in her life. In her March memoir, Getting Naked: The Quiet Work of Becoming Perfectly Imperfect, she wrote with striking candor about complications from her breast implants — including rupturing one after falling down the stairs, the surgeries that followed, and a recovery so harrowing she described her nipple as “holding on to within a literal half inch of its life.” She calls the whole ordeal “a doozie” and says a fourth surgery is still ahead.

This is a woman who has clearly decided she’s done softening things.

She ended Thursday’s segment on a lighter note. Bush Hager reminded viewers that Bertinelli was sticking around for a cooking segment, and Bertinelli was ready. “I’m gonna cook for you, and I’ll make it all up to you,” she told the hosts and crew with a grin.

Love, Again premieres Saturday, May 9, at 8/7c on Lifetime.