The former One Day At A Time star Valerie Bertinelli is speaking out to reveal that she was sexually abused as an 11 year-old child.
‘I Was Sexually Assaulted…’
“I had no plans to reveal this,” Bertinelli, 65, told People Magazine. “This was going to be a book about teaching people how to love themselves, I did not know that I would go this far.”
“I guess because I’m healing from it, it’s not so scary anymore,” she continued. “I can say it out loud: I was sexually assaulted. It doesn’t feel like it owns me anymore.”
This revelation is part of the “raw truth” that Bertinelli discloses in her new book Getting Naked, which hits stores on March 10.
“It’s about getting naked with who I am, emotionally, physically,” she explained. “It was really about getting to the nitty gritty and getting to the parts that I thought were shameful and come to find out they’re not. They’re all kinds of different facets of what makes us who we are.”
Bertinelli Includes Photo Of Herself At 11
At the start of that chapter of her book, Bertinelli “purposely” included a picture of herself at 11 years old “because that was the little girl that was sexually abused.”
“And it boggles my mind that this little girl was taken advantage of that way,” she stated. “It boggles my mind because it’s still happening … and I’m furious about it. And we need to start speaking up and saying, ‘Enough.’”
“It’s taken me 10 years at least,” Bertinelli added of her decision to come forward with this. “The very first time I said it out loud to my therapist, I thought I’m going to feel better now. It got worse before it got better. I maybe ate a little bit more, drank a little bit more. When you stop eating things for comfort, stop drinking alcohol, it exposes your feelings. You can deal with them or not. And I chose to deal with them. I don’t feel shame about it anymore. I’m pissed off that it happened. Nobody deserves that.”
Bertinelli’s Difficult 2024
Then came 2024, which was a particularly tough year for Bertinelli.
“I had a huge anxiety attack at the end of 2024 that brought me to my knees,” she said. ”And I thought I’m not getting anywhere. I needed to do more work.”
This meant doing some serious digging as to what led to the body shame that Bertinelli has felt for decades.
“All of that shame had nothing to do with my body,” she said. “It was just something to take out my shame on. My poor body. I was so mean to it. I just needed to get all those voices out of my head. As I was going through that, I’m thinking people are going to wonder, why do I have so much self loathing? That’s not normal. It’s because trauma happened in my childhood for the most part. I can’t speak for anybody else but it’s pretty textbook.”
When asked what she was like at the age of 11, Bertinelli replied, “I loved to color, read, play with my Barbies and ride my bike around the block. I loved my cats. I was just a little girl.”
Looking back now, Bertinelli describes herself as being “a survivor.”
What happened to Bertinelli as a child is truly horrific. We applaud her for having the strength to come forward with her trauma.
God bless you, Valerie Bertinelli!