Valerie Bertinelli reacts to Matthew Perry’s makeout story with Taylor Swift lyrics

Could Valerie Bertinelli be any more mortified?

The actress has appeared to respond to Matthew Perry’s claims that the two once made out in the 1990s while her then-husband, the late Eddie Van Halen, was passed out a few feet away. Bertinelli shared a TikTok that featured Taylor Swift’s “Anti-Hero,” from her recently released Midnights album, and the lyrics, “It’s me, hi. I’m the problem, it’s me.”

“Anyone misbehave in their 20s and early 30s?” Bertinelli wrote on the video. “Are you mortified?”

Perry shared in his forthcoming memoir, Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing, that he harbored an unrequited crush on Bertinelli when the two starred on the short-lived 1990 sitcom Sydney, which followed Bertinelli as a single woman who tried to make a living as a private detective in Los Angeles. Perry, a few years before his star-making turn in Friends, played her younger brother.

“I fell madly in love with Valerie Bertinelli, who was clearly in a troubled marriage,” Perry writes. “My crush was crushing; not only was she way out of my league, but she was also married to one of the most famous rock stars on the planet, Eddie Van Halen.” Perry said his feelings were so intense that he fantasized about Bertinelli leaving Van Halen for him.

Valerie Bertinelli and Matthew Perry

Jim Smeal/Ron Galella Collection via Getty Images Matthew Perry and Valerie Bertinelli

One night, while at Bertinelli and Van Halen’s home, Perry said he went for it with his costar. “As the night progressed, it was clear that Eddie had enjoyed the fruits of the vine a little too hard, one more time, and eventually he just passed out, not ten feet away from us, but still,” he writes. “This was my chance! If you think I didn’t actually have a chance in hell you’d be wrong, dear reader — Valerie and I had a long, elaborate makeout session.”

By the next day, Bertinelli “made no mention” of what transpired and behaved “like this was just a normal day,” Perry writes. “I quickly got the hint and also played the role I was supposed to, but inside I was devastated.” He endured “tearful” nights as a result. Relief came when the show was ultimately canceled, “and I didn’t have to see Valerie anymore,” Perry recounts.

Story continues

Bertinelli and Van Halen wed in 1981 and divorced in 2007. The rock legend died in 2020 from cancer at the age of 65. He and Bertinelli share musician son Wolfgang Van Halen, 31.

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