Valerie Bertinelli married longtime boyfriend Tom Vitale on the first night of 2011 in front of family and friends – including her ex-husband, Eddie Van Halen.
“I think it’s really important that you never ever hate your ex more than you love your children and I’ve never hated Ed, so I’m lucky,” Valerie told Access Hollywood at the “Hot In Cleveland” Season 2 premiere on Monday night in Los Angeles. “I think as adults we need to — because we’re disrupting their lives and they don’t have any say about it — we’re the ones that have to be grown ups and behave and treat each other with dignity and kindness, because it’s for our children’s sake.”
Inviting her ex to the wedding wasn’t the only unique part of Valerie’s New Year’s Day wedding to Tom. She also skipped wearing a white dress for the big day, instead opting for a blue one by designer David Meister
“Well, it’s a second marriage, so I thought ‘White?’” she shrugged “I mean, you could still do white, people do it all the time and there’s nothing wrong with it, but I guess, you know, the ocean is beautiful and…I don’t know. I don’t know what possessed us.”
The Malibu Ocean was the backdrop for Valerie and Tom’s “I do’s,” and the dress got the seal of approval from Valerie’s “Hot In Cleveland” co-star, Betty White.
“Oh, well she’s not an ugly girl. Have you noticed that?” Betty laughed when asked about how Valerie looked on her big day. “She looked gorgeous and she’s happy. That’s the bottom line.”
Valerie and Tom’s wedding came as a surprise to many who thought that the two were never going to make it official, but it was just something the couple felt they needed to finally do.
“We’ve been together for so long, it was really just the ‘tying of the knot,’ pun intended, to just say – ‘This is it, and now we’re moving forward for the rest of our lives,’” Valerie explained. “It’s less about the day of the wedding than about our marriage; we wanted to do it right.”
“Hot In Cleveland” Season 2 premieres at 10 PM on January 19 on TV Land.
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