For the first time since their quiet split in November 2024, Mike Goodnough is publicly opening up about his emotional breakup from actress and Food Network star Valerie Bertinelli, and he’s not sugarcoating a single word.
In a deeply personal Instagram post, the 54-year-old writer described their relationship as “complicated,” and the breakup as “by far the most painful experience” he’s ever endured.
“Valerie and I had a complicated relationship,” he wrote. “Our time as a couple ended months ago, but our close contact only really ended recently. So, it is more ‘fresh’ than it would seem.”
Goodnough and Bertinelli dated for 10 months before parting ways late last year. Despite the official breakup, he admitted the emotional connection lingered much longer, and the eventual silence between them hit hardest.
“The one thing that was never an issue was our love for each other,” he said. “I loved Valerie more than I’ve ever loved someone in a relationship of choice.”
He added that external factors, not their bond, got in the way.
“Almost all of [the issues] were external. They were things outside of our relationship per se which nonetheless interfered.”
Goodnough revealed he recently reached out to Bertinelli, hoping to find “a gentle parting” between them. But when she didn’t respond, he took the silence as closure.
“No answer is an answer though. I accept it,” he said. “This chapter is now closed for me. I’ve cried about this enough. It’s time to move on.”
He confirmed this would be his final word on their relationship.
“I won’t have anything more to say about it, and nothing I have to say will be about it.”
Valerie Bertinelli, 64, hasn’t directly addressed Mike’s emotional post, but just days earlier, she had shared a vulnerable message of her own, about feeling shame and regret in past relationships.
“I think about mistakes I’ve made in relationships a lot,” she wrote. “I’ve been on both sides of this and I think I finally have some perspective.”
Her words hinted at emotional stonewalling, self-awareness, and the difficulty of giving or receiving apologies when shame is in the way.
“Change never happens through criticism, shame, or pressure,” she added. “When I f*** up, oof, do I feel shame.”
Whether the timing of her post was intentional or coincidental, it painted a mirror to Mike’s emotional reckoning.
Valerie Bertinelli was previously married to Eddie Van Halen from 1981 to 2007 and later to Tom Vitale, whom she divorced in 2022 after more than a decade of marriage. Her relationship with Goodnough was one of the first romances she publicly embraced following her divorce.
Now, both appear to be moving on, though clearly, the heartbreak is still close to the surface.
As Mike put it: “What was once a 10 is now a four. It has entirely changed the scale of how much heartbreak can hurt.”
And for fans of both, this rare peek behind the curtain shows just how human even the most public love stories can be.
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