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Valerie Bertinelli responds to claims she kissed Matthew Perry next to passed-out husband Eddie Van Halen

‘It’s me, hi, I’m the problem,’ actor mouthed on TikTok

Isobel Lewis
Thursday 27 October 2022 16:58 BST
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Actor Valerie Bertinelli has responded on TikTok to claims that she and Matthew Perry once “made out” next to her passed-out husband.

The Friends star made the claim in his forthcoming memoir Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing, in which he writes about his struggles with addiction.

In one part of the book, Perry claims that he and Bertinelli once had a “long, elaborate make-out session” while her then-husband Eddie Van Halen was passed out drunk

Perry says that he was “madly in love” with Bertinelli, who played his sister on the 1990 sitcom Sydney, and felt hurt when she decided not to acknowledge what had happened the next day.

On Wednesday (26 October), Bertinelli took part in a TikTok challenge based on Taylor Swift’s single “Anti-Hero”.

In the video, Bertinelli appears to reference the headlines from Perry’s book as she awkwardly grins and mouths the lyrics: “It’s me, hi, I’m the problem.”

“Anyone misbehave in their 20s and early 30s? Are you mortified?” she wrote, before putting her head in her hands.

One commenter wrote: “I saw the Matthew story this morning! You left an impression girl!! Good on ya,” to which Bertinelli responded with an emoji with its hands over its face.

Bertinelli was married to Van Halen from 1981 to 2007. However, Perry wrote in his memoir that his co-star was “clearly in a troubled marriage” (via Page Six).

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“My crush was crushing,” he wrote. “Not only was she way out of my league, but she was also married to one of the most famous rock stars on the planet, Eddie Van Halen.

“It is important to point out here that my feelings for Valerie were real. I was completely captivated – I mean, I was obsessed with her and harbored elaborate fantasies about her leaving Eddie Van Halen and living out the rest of her days with me.”

Perry claims the kiss occurred one night when he was at the couple’s home, “just hanging out and gazing at Valerie, trying to make her laugh. When you made her laugh, you felt ten feet tall”.

Bertinelli in April
Bertinelli in April (Getty Images for The Recording A)

Describing how Van Halen drunkenly passed out “not 10 feet away from us”, the actor wrote: “This was my chance! If you think I didn’t actually have a chance in hell you’d be wrong, dear reader – Valerie and I had a long, elaborate make-out session. It was happening – maybe she felt the same way I did.

“I told her I had thought about doing that for a long time, and she had said it right back to me.”

However, the next day at work, Bertinelli “made no mention of what had happened and was behaving – as she should have been – like this was just a normal day.

“I quickly got the hint and also played the role I was supposed to, but inside I was devastated,” Perry explained.

As a result, he says he was “grateful” when Sydney got cancelled four weeks later, as it meant he ​​”didn’t have to see Valerie anymore”.

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