Valerie Bertinelli’s memoir, Getting Naked, came out in March. Someone reviewed it here (Margie?), however I picked it up at the library yesterday, and read it in the afternoon.
Bertinelli has written other books before that explored her life and feelings about it. Getting Naked is a continuation of that process, the process of growing and analyzing feelings, relationships, and herself. This time, she says she wants to be the woman in her sixties who asks not “How do I look?” but “How do I feel?” If you’ve read any of her books, or interviews with her in the past, you know she’s spent fifty years analyzing her appearance, always worried about whether she’s too fat or not beautiful enough. Some of it comes from a life in front of the camera, one that started when she was just a young teen. As she discusses her emotions in this book, she attempts to connect the dots to find out where her emphasis on image and appearance came from. She says she was trained from a young age to look at was apparently wrong with her.
The actress and author spends most of the book analyzing herself. No matter why a reader picks up the book, though, there are some points that will hit home.She discusses “The version of ourselves we feel comfortable sharing.” We don’t always treat ourselves with the same kindness we treat others. I’ll admit some of the analysis became a little much for me, and I skipped a little of it.
My favorite chapter, though, had humor and a few tears. It was “If I Could Talk to My Animals”. Bertinelli has a dog and a number of cats. It’s obvious that she loves them, sometimes more than herself. I enjoyed her impressions of how her cats and dog view her and her life. As someone who lived with (never owned!) a lot of cats, I think she hit that nail on the head. Those cats have opiinions.
When she discussed the TV show “Hot in Cleveland”, it was also obvious how much she loved Betty White. It was a joy to read her impressions of White. But, Bertinelli’s love is more than her cats and dog and friends. As in an earlier book, Enough Already, she emphasizes her love for her late ex-husband, Eddie Van Halen, and their son, Wolfie. She also made me laugh because she continually hinted that she would love to be a grandmother, and offers to babysit.
No matter what you think of Valerie Bertinelli, iGetting Naked, reveals a woman who spent fifty years in front of a camera, and is still trying to work on herself. She says she has fifteen to twenty years left. She wants to spend that time trying to be the best she can, and she continues to work at it.
Getting Naked: The Quiet Work of Becoming Perfectly Imperfect by Valerie Bertinelli. Harper Wave, 2026. 240p.
FTC Full Disclosure – Library book
