Valerie Bertinelli Says Her Honesty Touches 'a Nerve with People' but She Won't 'Pretend to Be Happy When I'm Not'

Valerie Bertinelli is an open book — but she hasn’t always been this way.

Over the past few years, Bertinelli has been increasingly open with fans on social media about her experience with toxic relationships and body-image issues, which started when she was a teen. She really started confronting those struggles during her 2022 divorce from her second husband, Tom Vitale, after 11 years of marriage.

“I think I've always been a verbal vomiter. But I think the last, I want to say five, six years have probably made me be a little bit more honest,” Bertinelli tells PEOPLE while supportingWilliams Sonoma’s collaboration with No Kid Hungry. “I decided that I wasn't going to necessarily fake it ‘till I make it and pretend to be happy when I'm not, and just be as authentic as I possibly can."

As she shared learnings from her healing journey, she admits it did “touch a nerve with people.” But that didn't stop her.

“I think sometimes we can put a hand out to say, ‘Hey, I'm trying to do this and if you need some help, I can be here too,’" she explains. "I have a platform where I can put my hand out and say, 'Come along with me.’ That's fulfilling. By me just being able to verbal vomit my feelings and that helps somebody else. Why I wouldn't I?”

While she admits it’s not the most traditiona -

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l way to give back to her fans, it’s still "a start," she says. "It's an unconventional start maybe, but it's where I find myself. By just being honest about my life, if that helps people, great."

She adds: “We're such a big world and we're so much more alike than we are different. Some people just want to be heard. They just want to be seen. We all do. Even me, and I have a platform, but sometimes I feel unseen.”

In her recent PEOPLE cover story, Bertinelli said the end of her marriage was the "catalyst” for inner change.

“That was just the breaking point for me, where I finally decided I’ve had enough. I was continuing to tolerate intolerable things, starting with my own words in my own head," she shared in April.

She told PEOPLE at the time that her desire to “feel calm” led her to “more consistent therapy, more journaling and meditation,” all of which she’s documented the benefits of across her social media channels. 

Healing took time and plenty of tears. “The more I let myself cry, the better I felt. When I decided to really question why I was having a certain emotion," she said, "I was able to — most of the time — walk through it and get to the other side."

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