Valerie Bertinelli of “One Day At A Time” fame broke down on Thursday in an emotional Instagram video in which she responded to trolls who criticized her weight.
Bertinelli, 61, admitted to her fans that she made the “mistake” of reading the comments on some of her recipes online. When she started scrolling through them, she saw that many of the comments were from trolls saying that she “needed to lose weight.”
“Because see, I don’t have a scale or I don’t have clothes that I’m trying to put on every day, and I don’t have mirrors so I don’t see what’s become of me,” she said sarcastically through tears. “So I needed that help to let me know that I need to lose weight.”
“You’re not being helpful,” she added. “Because when you see somebody who has put some weight on, my first thought is, ‘That person is obviously going through some things.'”
Fox News reported that this past year has been tough for all of us amidst COVID-19, but it was especially hard for Bertinelli. Her ex-husband Eddie Van Halen, who she was married to from 1981 until 2007, died from throat cancer at age 65 in October of 2020.
Bertinelli ended her emotional video by saying that she if she could “lose the weight and keep it off,” she would.
“But since I haven’t been successful with that my whole entire life — at 61, I’m still dealing with [it]. You think I’m not tired of it, lady?” she asked. “Not f–king helpful.”
“Aren’t we tired of body shaming women yet?!” Bertinelli wrote in the caption.
The actress and Food Network host went on to say that though she thought about deleting the video, she ultimately decided to keep it up.
“But then I realized it was hitting it a ‘good’ nerve with so many of you who were so sweet to dm and share your same vulnerability and struggles,” Bertinelli wrote. “We all could use a little more kindness and patience and grace, because we just never know what someone else is going through. So here it is. Not deleting. Owning it.”
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Last year, Bertinelli confessed in a “Today” show interview that she “used food to avoid sadness.”
“With the loss of my parents and dealing with other trials life throws our way, I’ve used food as a way not to feel the sadness or the stress,” she explained. “But by eating something away, all it does is make me feel worse about myself. One of my personal mottos is ‘choose happy.’ But sometimes that choice is really challenging.”
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