Valerie Bertinelli and Mike Goodnough kept much of their whirlwind romance under wraps — but since splitting, they’ve caught fans’ attention by choosing to discuss their break up publicly.
Bertinelli revealed in March 2024 that she was dating someone “very special,” but it wasn’t until the following month that Goodnough’s identity was confirmed.
That November, reports surfaced that the Hot in Cleveland alum and Goodnough had called it quits. Bertinelli once again kept quiet about the life development until March 2025, when she confirmed the breakup on social media.
“I look at life with a different perspective and caring because of my experiences and conversations with him,” Bertinelli wrote of her ex via her Instagram Story. “And he’s been a big part of helping me heal from some old childhood wounds I never knew what to do with or even where to start.”
Valerie Bertinelli has fallen head over heels for a new man she met online. “I’m in love,” Bertinelli, 63, told People magazine in an interview published on Monday, April 1. “It’s a seesaw of emotions because I was adamant I was never falling in love again.” The former Food Network host, who didn’t reveal her […]
That same month, rumors spread that Bertinelli and Goodnough were feuding via cryptic social media messages, leading Goodnough to publicly address the drama.
“I am not communicating with Valerie via my posts,” Goodnough wrote via Instagram in March 2025, claiming, “I am not engaging with the things she posts. While I am disappointed in the array of hostile, dishonest, and uncalled for backhanded swipes she continues to take at me, there is no war between us.”
He alleged, “She just won’t stop shooting. Valerie is in a war with her ghosts. I’m just the guy who catches the bullets. And that isn’t new.” (Us Weekly reached out to Bertinelli’s rep for comment at the time.)
Scroll down to see everything Bertinelli and Goodnough have said about their split:
‘Irreversibly Changed’
Bertinelli broke her silence about the split from Goodnough in March 2025, revealing she had been “irreversibly changed by him for the better.” The actress wrote via her Instagram Story at the time, “I know I am becoming a much stronger and more benevolent human for having met him and spent time with him.”
“Before I had the pleasure of meeting Mike, I was initially and immediately attracted to his writing. It’s heartfelt, authentic, smart, funny, sensitive, caring, and from the soul,” she gushed. “And the way he puts words together is just sooo ridiculously beautiful. 🤩 I’m a big fan, can you tell?”
Making a change for herself. Valerie Bertinelli broke down how prioritizing her mental health influenced her personal journey. “So it’s getting about time for me to probably go down another jean size. I can’t believe it. And this all started in November, the month I got free,” the Food Network star, 62, wrote via Instagram […]
The former Food Network star continued, “And as luck would have it, the human being in person is exactly as heartfelt, authentic, sensitive and caring as his writing. And wickedly witty.”
Bertinelli noted that despite parting ways, she will always “value all of our long conversations” that have “led me to interesting and fascinating places I rarely thought to go.”
He Still Cares
“I care about Valerie,” Goodnough wrote via social media in March 2025. “I have love for her and I always will. I want her to be happy. It will bring me nothing but joy to see that she is.”
He reminisced about their time together, writing, “Exactly one year ago, Valerie and I were together for the launch of her book. It was one of the most joyful weeks of my life. Taking true deep joy from Valerie’s happiness and success was the easiest thing in the world. It is no harder now. Our relationship as partners ended. My caring about her did not.”
Playing Social Media Games?
While Goodnough said he wanted Bertinelli to be happy, he also addressed their alleged social media feud in the same March 2025 post. He denied that the exes were “communicating with each other via our Instagram posts and stories.”
After fans pointed out that Bertinelli and Goodnough’s respective posts seemed to be responses to each other, he claimed he’s “very capable of communicating openly and directly with people I know and care about.”
Goodnough then alleged that over the past few months, Bertinelli “has been prone to lapsing into a place where she has been playing a one-woman tennis match thinking there is someone on the other side of the net.”
He claimed the Valerie’s Home Cooking star “centers herself” in his posts and then “lashes out angrily with a ‘response’ to things that were neither to her or about her.” Goodnough insisted that he and Bertinelli were not “going back-and-forth” despite the optics.
Closing a Chapter
In April 2025, Goodnough addressed his previous comments about Bertinelli and tried to walk back his claims about her social media posts. “I regret having posted it. I wish I hadn’t. The issue addressed was real. My post made it worse rather than better,” he wrote via Instagram.
He explained, “Valerie and I had a complicated relationship. 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 said there were “external” forces that affected his and Bertinelli’s relationship but insisted “one thing that was never an issue was our love for each other.” He revealed that the “dissolution of [their] relationship” was “by far the most painful experience of my life.”
Gregg DeGuire/Getty Images; Courtesy of Mike Goodnough/Instagram Following her divorce from Tom Vitale, Valerie Bertinelli moved on with writer Mike Goodnough for less than one year. The One Day at a Time actress, who shares son Wolfgang with her late ex-husband, Eddie Van Halen, revealed in March 2024 that she was dating someone “very special” […]
“It has been so acutely agonizing, it has entirely changed the scale of how much heartbreak can hurt,” he shared. “Over the last few months, I had hoped we’d find a way to a gentle parting rather than a closed door but couldn’t seem to get us to one. I reached out again this week in that hope. No answer is an answer though. I accept it.”
Goodnough concluded, “With that said, this chapter is now closed for me. I won’t have anything more to say about it — and nothing I have to say will be about it. I’ve cried about this enough. It’s time to move on.”
Who Pulled the Plug?
One day after claiming he’d “closed” the chapter on his and Bertinelli’s romance and split, Goodnough returned to social media. After a Threads user suggested in April 2025 that the former One Day at a Time actress “left” him, Goodnough clapped back, alleging that he “ended the relationship.”
