Eddie Van Halen’s Final Words to His Family Were Simple — and Heartbreaking

More than a year after the death of Eddie Van Halen, new insight has emerged into the private emotional world surrounding the legendary guitarist’s final days. In her memoir, Enough Already: Learning to Love the Way I Am Today, his first wife, Valerie Bertinelli, reflects on a relationship that defied public caricature and endured long after divorce.

A Love That Outlasted Marriage

In an excerpt shared with People, Bertinelli recalls one of her final exchanges with Van Halen, who died on October 6, 2020. Facing the end, she told him quietly, “Maybe next time. Maybe next time, we’ll get it right.”

The line, simple and unresolved, underscores the emotional complexity that defined their bond. Married in 1981, Bertinelli and Van Halen became one of rock music’s most recognizable couples, welcoming their son Wolfgang Van Halen in 1991. Although they separated in 2005 and finalized their divorce in 2007, they remained closely connected as both went on to remarry.

Looking back, Bertinelli writes with unguarded affection. “I loved Ed more than I know how to explain. I loved his soul,” she says. Addressing how they were often framed in the media, she adds, “We were portrayed as a mismatch. The bad boy rock star and America’s sweetheart, but privately, Ed wasn’t the person people thought he was and neither was I.”

Compassion Through Addiction and Illness

Bertinelli does not shy away from the darker chapters of Van Halen’s life, particularly his struggles with substance abuse. “I hated the drugs and alcohol but I never hated him. I saw his pain,” she writes. That empathy, she notes, never disappeared, even after their marriage ended and his health began to deteriorate.

One of the book’s most poignant moments takes place in 2019, when Van Halen asked to speak with her alone. During that conversation, he handed her a small bag containing a pendant-sized gold bar he had purchased while receiving treatment in Germany. Emotional and unsure, he worried aloud about how the gesture might be perceived. “I hope you don’t think it’s weird, you know, that I bought my ex-wife this gift and didn’t get my wife anything,” he said through tears. “I just love you.”

Bertinelli interprets the gift as an unspoken apology. “He wants me to know he messed up [during our marriage],” she writes, adding that she, too, accepted responsibility: “I contributed to our troubles too and I am also sorry.”

The Bond That Never Broke

Despite the deep affection between them, Bertinelli is clear that reconciliation was never in the cards. “There is no chance we are going to get back together,” she writes, acknowledging that reopening that door would have carried an emotional weight neither of them wanted to revisit.

What remained, instead, was something harder to define. “I can’t explain the feelings Ed and I had for each other,” she continues. “I loved him more than I know how to explain and there’s nothing sexual about it. It was more than that.” She describes their connection as rare and enduring, rooted in shared history, mutual understanding, and their son.

As Van Halen’s final days approached, Bertinelli writes that she and Wolfgang were at the hospital every day, alongside Eddie’s wife Janie Liszewski and his brother Alex Van Halen. “’I love you’ are the last words Ed says to Wolfie and me,” Bertinelli recalls, “and they are the last words we say to him before he stops breathing.”

In the end, Bertinelli’s reflections move beyond personal grief and into something larger: a meditation on love that survives ego, fame, heartbreak, and time. For a man whose life was defined by volume, speed, and virtuosity, Van Halen’s final chapter, as told here, is strikingly quiet — centered not on legacy or legend, but on connection, forgiveness, and the simple power of saying “I love you” when it matters most.